Naruto vs Super Sentai
by Rider Paladin
Summary: Cross-fusion by way of reincarnation, as the heroes of one world and age are reborn in another world and age, bringing back powers sure to astonish the Five Great Shinobi Nations, but with these heroes come their worst nemeses . . .
1. Return of the Killer King

"Naruto vs. Super Sentai"

Chapter 1: "Return of the Killer King"

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, Shonen Jump, and Viz. Super Sentai and its associated characters belong to Toei and TV Asahi. I make no money from the use of either property, nor do I derive any other profit from this story.

Author's note: Sudden burst of inspiration hit me to do this story. To make a long story short, Dr. Mikoto Nakadai – Abarekiller – is one of the most badass "Sixth Ranger" characters to come out of Sentai in a while. Granted, he's dead now, but my idea is that he was reincarnated in the Naruto world as none other than Naruto Uzumaki, and the circumstances of the Land of Waves mission will cause him to awaken his Dino Guts – the power that fuels all the Abaranger – once again. Have fun reading this, I hope.

* * *

A blond boy, no older than fourteen, in an orange jumpsuit with blue highlights on the shoulders and a white collar ran up the trunk of a tree, holding a kunai in his hand. As he ran up, he felt himself begin to slip and slashed the trunk with his kunai at the point where he'd begun to slip before he fell to the ground.

As it was, that wasn't the only mark the boy had left on the tree trunk with his kunai. Similar marks riddled the trunk at a certain height, one just ahead of the other. It was progress, but not enough as far as the boy was concerned. If he didn't get even better, the other one would still surpass him, and he couldn't have that.

As it turned out, something had fallen out of the particular tree he had chosen to practice with. It resembled a large white dinosaur egg, albeit with black markings and red "veins." Next to it was a strange white bracelet designed to resemble the profile of a pterosaur's head.

The boy turned his head to look at the strange things that had fallen out of "his" tree. "What the heck?" He didn't know why, but something in him wanted him to pick up the bracelet, and so he did. The moment he strapped it onto his wrist, something happened – namely, a jolt of agonizing power surging through his body.

"AAAAAAAHHHHH!" _What's happening to me?! Is this thing trying to kill me?!_

The power continued to surge through him, burning away his clothes and replacing them with a skintight armor-like white suit. Black claw marks ran down the sides and outer legs of the suit, and along the insides of the arms. Short white gloves with black triangle pads on the backs and gold-and-black cuffs covered his hands. A gold belt with a buckle shaped like a cracked egg with three spikes protruding from the top and one spike from the bottom wrapped around his waist.

A white breastplate styled vaguely like a pterosaur covered his upper torso, with black claw marks decorating his shoulders and gold trim around the edges. A white helmet with a small black fin rising from the forehead and red eyes on either side of it covered his head. A red visor that almost could have passed for an X if not for the triangular dip in the lower side shielded his eyes.

The boy breathed heavily, unsure of just what had happened to him, but knowing that he felt stronger than he'd ever been before. Just as suddenly as it had come, the strange power retreated, taking the suit with it and leaving him back in his orange clothes . . . and too drained to do anything but collapse into a deep slumber.

This boy was Naruto Uzumaki, newly minted genin of Konohagakure, the Village Hidden Amongst the Leaves. Naruto Uzumaki, a living sacrifice damned to imprison the monstrous Nine-Tailed Fox within his own body so that his village would be spared its wrath. Naruto Uzumaki, whose father's final wish had been for him to be seen as a hero for his sacrifice, but who had only met scorn instead.

And now Naruto Uzumaki . . . Abarekiller once again.

* * *

When he woke, he felt like a stranger to his own body. His limbs felt longer, stronger, and tougher, as did his entire body. His clothes, which normally fit loosely on him, were now uncomfortably tight on his body. The really strange thing, though, was this girl in a rose-colored kimono with a black choker around her neck, and the prettiest brown eyes and long luxurious black hair he'd ever seen on a girl.

"Who . . . who are you?" Naruto asked, his voice sounding strange to him, too.

"I'm just looking for herbs," the girl answered, in a soft, melodious voice.

"Herbs?" Naruto echoed.

"Yes," the girl replied. "Are you all right? I saw you lying out here unconscious and I thought something might have happened to you."

"Nah, I was just training all night," Naruto replied. He felt no need to tell the girl about what had happened last night; he was almost sure it was just some weird dream, anyways. Only in weird superhero shows with flashy effects did strange devices transform not-quite-ordinary boys into supermen of justice.

"Training? Why?" the girl asked. "You seem pretty strong already."

"I need to get stronger," Naruto answered, his voice unnaturally low and serious. "I need to get strong enough so that I can be respected in my village, so that _he_ can look at me and know that I'm just as good as he is."

"And is this person you speak of the one you want to get strong for?" the girl wondered.

"What do you mean?"

"Is he important to you? Do you find him important enough to fight for?"

Naruto stared. "You're not making any sense."

"People become strong, truly strong, when they have something they would give anything to protect," the girl replied. "Do you understand now?"

Memories flashed in Naruto's mind. One was of his sensei Kakashi Hatake's pledge to protect him and his teammates Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno. Another was of Iruka, his teacher back at the Academy, risking his own life to save Naruto from Mizuki, who had gone renegade. Other memories rose to the surface, of a little girl turned young woman in white, of four young people in red, blue, yellow, and black jackets – and then in skintight red, blue, yellow, and black costumes.

_Where did those come from?_ Naruto thought. _Ok, stop watching the kiddie superhero shows; they're not good for you._ He looked back up at the girl and said, "I . . . understand."

"Good. You'll become very strong soon." She stood up and turned to leave. "We'll meet again sometime." She began to walk away, slowing down to say one more thing to Naruto. "By the way, I'm a boy."

Naruto's eyes widened. _That has got to be the purest load of garbage I have ever heard,_ a smooth, deep voice spoke in his mind. _No way could someone that beautiful be a boy._

Without thinking, Naruto added, _Yeah! He's prettier than Sakura!_ Then something snapped in his brain. _Who the hell are you? And what are you doing in my head?_

_I'm you,_ the voice answered. _The you that once was._

_That doesn't answer my question one damn bit!_ Naruto yelled.

_Look at your left arm and you'll find your answer,_ the voice stated coolly.

Naruto did as the voice instructed and found the white pterosaur-styled bracelet around his left wrist. _What is this? Who are you?!_

_Dr. Mikoto Nakadai,_ the voice answered. _You may call me Nakadai-sensei or Abarekiller._

"So it wasn't a dream last night . . ." Naruto murmured. He looked around, finding the strange white egg that he'd seen last night. "What's this?"

_TopGaler's egg,_ Mikoto replied. _He's going to live again, but he's going to need a lot of energy to do it. You'll help with that._

_What makes you think I'll help you do that? And what the hell is TopGaler, anyway?_

_My partner. My Bakuryu._

_Bakuryu?_ Naruto repeated. _What's that?_

_It's too tiresome to explain. Search my memories. You'll know what I'm talking about soon enough._

Naruto closed his eyes for a moment, and saw flashes of giant biomechanical dinosaurs fighting each other, piloted by people in colorful skintight costumes, and even combining at the will of those same costumed people into what could only be described as "giant humanoid machines."

_How did you come to be inside me?_

_I'm not "inside" you; I _am_ you. You as you once were. I am the life that you used to have, before we sacrificed it for the sake of the friends that we had made, the friends that embraced us even after all we'd done to them._

Other memories began to awaken within Naruto, of his former self fighting the colorfully clad people with the power of his own armor – the Zero suit, the prototype for the suits used by the colorfully clad people, the Abarangers. Again and again, he had fought them. Again and again, he had used the Zero suit, despite the destruction its instability could cause over prolonged use.

_What kind of monster was I?_ Naruto thought.

_Even that, I do not know,_ Mikoto answered. _We were either a monster of our own making, or the making of the monster inside of us, the monster that nearly swallowed us whole. But we denied him his prize. Our friends denied him his prize. And I suppose . . . this is either redemption or punishment._

Just then, a dark-haired boy in a wide-collared blue shirt and khaki shorts came up to him. Sasuke Uchiha, prodigy of Konoha, heartthrob of all the girls in his age group, last of the formerly proud Uchiha clan, and generally unpleasant bastard.

"Loser," he grumbled. "What are you doing out here by yourself, anyway?"

"Just training," Naruto answered.

"Anyway, we'd better get you back. Everyone's worried about you," Sasuke remarked.

"Does that include you, bastard?" Naruto asked.

"No," Sasuke replied. "Even you wouldn't get yourself killed out here."

"Thanks," Naruto muttered, heading back to Tazuna's house with Sasuke.

* * *

While the sun was still out, Naruto continued practicing with tree-walking, although for some strange reason he found it easier than before. Before, it was like trying to climb a mountain without gear. Now, it was no different than walking up a simple ramp. He laughed to himself as he walked all the way up to the highest branch of the tree.

"Hey!" he shouted, catching the attention of Sakura and Kakashi.

"Naruto!" Sakura exclaimed. "You went that high?!"

"Yeah!" Naruto shouted. "I dare Sasuke to top that!"

Sakura growled with irritation, only to gasp when Naruto started to fall. "Oh, crap . . ." Kakashi muttered.

As it turned out, it was just a prank Naruto was playing on them, as he stood upside down on a lower branch. "Just messing with you."

"Naruto, you idiot!" Sakura yelled.

Naruto just moved back onto the tree trunk and ran down on it, flipping off it and landing on his feet in a crouch when he was low enough. "What do you think, Kakashi-sensei?"

"Not bad at all, Naruto," Kakashi remarked. "You're progressing quite well. And did you have a growth spurt, by any chance?"

"Something like that," Naruto answered.

* * *

Of course, that provoked Sasuke to almost miss dinner later that night trying to match Naruto's accomplishment. Naruto also nearly missed dinner, primarily from pushing himself to maintain his newfound skills. Then Kakashi had to take a brief diversion from dinner to help Naruto find new clothes, since his old ones were now too small and . . . he frankly didn't trust Naruto's fashion sense one damn bit.

By the time they all got back to Tazuna's house for dinner, Sakura looked stunned at the "new" Naruto. Had he grown taller? And what was he doing in those clothes? Specifically, he was wearing a white-trimmed black jacket partially unzipped to expose a white T-shirt, black pants with orange stripes down the sides, and white open-toed ninja boots. He bore the identifying metal of Konoha on a black headband and his shuriken and kunai pouches were black as well.

"I'm glad you're all back," Tsunami remarked. She smiled at Naruto. "And don't you look handsome?"

"Thanks," Naruto answered. "Kakashi-sensei helped pick these out."

That was technically the truth, but he was holding back a huge part of it. Specifically, that Mikoto had wanted Naruto to wear his battle colors – white and black. Naruto had to admit, he looked cool in them, but he still liked orange, hence the pants.

"Where did you get those clothes from?" Sakura asked.

"Kakashi-sensei helped me with them," Naruto replied. "They were actually tailored for me."

"Seriously?!" Sakura exclaimed. "You had time to buy clothes!?"

"Sakura, Naruto had a growth spurt," Kakashi explained calmly. "And thus he needed new clothes. It wouldn't be a good idea for him to fight in uncomfortable clothes; they could hinder his movements and make it likelier for someone to kill him."

Sakura fumed, but admitted internally that Kakashi was right. "How did you do, Sasuke?"

"Fine," Sasuke replied nonchalantly. "Made it to the top."

As Kakashi, Naruto, and Sasuke sat down to eat, Tazuna asked, "So what made you stick around?"

"It's simple," Kakashi answered. "Evil triumphs when good people stand by and do nothing. It was a philosophy all the Hokages held quite strongly."

There was contemplative silence for a while, and then Inari broke it with an angry speech. "You don't get it, do you? All that training you're doing, all those cool things you say, they don't mean anything! Gato will hunt you down and kill you all! That's what happens! The strong always survive and the weak always die!"

"Then it's the duty of the strong to protect the weak," Naruto stated calmly.

"Shut up! You don't get it, either! Always laughing and playing around, and even buying fancy new clothes! It makes me sick just to look at you! You don't understand suffering!"

Naruto laughed, a quiet, cold sound matched only by the frostiness of his eyes. "Really. _I'm_ the one who doesn't understand suffering? And what of you? Crying and whimpering like a beaten dog just waiting to be put down. You're pathetic."

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled. "That's too far!"

"Shut up," Naruto spat coldly. "Zabuza was right about at least one of us. Playing at being ninja to impress some boy. Who's the loser now, hmm?" He stood up and walked out of the house, leaving everyone stunned, particularly Sakura.

Later that night, Kakashi went to talk with Inari. "Your grandfather told us what happened to your father, Inari. Believe it or not, Naruto does understand what you're going through a lot better than you think. He didn't have a father, either . . . or a mother for that matter. He didn't even have a single friend in our village, but I've never seen him cry, or sulk, or give up for even a moment."

He smiled gently at Inari through his mask. "I suppose he's one of those people that try to channel their negative feelings, no matter how strongly they feel them, into something that'll help improve their lot in life. True, it was harsh what he said to you, but he's probably said that to himself more than once. It's his way, odd as it might sound, of trying to help you."

* * *

Meanwhile, Naruto stood in a forest clearing by himself, looking at the pterosaur-styled white bracelet on his wrist. "So how do I turn this thing on?"

_The Dino Minder,_ Mikoto spoke up. _Pull the head open and then press the red button while saying, "Bakuryu Change."_

"Fine, Nakadai-sensei," Naruto said. He pulled open the "head" of the Dino Minder and then lifted it to his mouth. He pressed the red button on the Dino Minder, muttering, "Bakuryu Change."

Immediately, greenish-yellow energy swirled around Naruto, taking away his clothes and replacing them with the skintight white-and-black suit of Abarekiller. Naruto looked at his hands, flexing his fingers inside the tight white gloves. "Wow . . . this feels awesome!"

_This suit will enhance your strength and fighting abilities to an incredible degree,_ Mikoto explained. _But you must learn to control its power first before you start using it regularly._

_It isn't going to explode and take out the entire world this time, is it?_ Naruto asked.

_Not this time,_ Mikoto replied.

Naruto reached for the short sword holstered on his left hip, pulling it out. It was a white blade with gold accents and black claw marks on the hilt, not to mention that the hilt itself was tipped by something that resembled the head of a pterosaur. "What's this?"

_The Wing Pentact,_ Mikoto replied. _My weapon. It's capable of a lot of things. I'll show you._

The next thing Naruto knew, he'd flipped the Wing Pentact so that the hilt was pointing outward and slashed the air with it. Oddly enough, a line of energy was following the movements of the Wing Pentact, and when he stopped, arrows made of energy were floating in the air. "What the . . . ?"

_Fire them,_ Mikoto instructed.

"Sure," Naruto answered, pointing the Wing Pentact's blade out. Immediately, the energy arrows flew everywhere, impacting against both trees and ground and making a lot of explosions. "Whoa!"

_Yes. Impressive, isn't it? Very useful for confronting groups._

"Like the Abarangers?"

_Yes, like the Abarangers. And like the others you're going to have to fight. You won't always have single combats._

* * *

The next morning, Naruto awoke inside Tsunami's house. Training with Mikoto had taken a lot out of him, although maybe it might not have had he chosen to moderate himself. Hell, Mikoto had warned him, but Naruto had insisted on pushing himself past his limits.

"Morning, Naruto," Tsunami called out to him as he entered the kitchen.

"Where'd everyone else go?" Naruto asked.

"My father went to complete the bridge, and your friends went to guard him," Tsunami replied.

"They went without me?" Naruto asked.

"Kakashi thought you could use some rest," Tsunami answered.

Naruto growled quietly. "They left me behind." He smiled coolly at Tsunami. "I'm going to go to the bridge. See you around."

Unfortunately, as he leaped from tree to tree heading for the bridge, he spotted two thuggish men, one in a lavender-gray jacket and bandana and the other in a brownish-green shirt and scarred, heading toward Tazuna's house. _Somehow, I doubt those men mean any good,_ Mikoto remarked in Naruto's consciousness.

_Yeah,_ Naruto agreed. _They could be Gato's thugs._

_They probably_ are_ Gato's thugs,_ Mikoto countered.

With that possibility firmly entrenched in his thoughts, Naruto ran back to Tazuna's house, only to find the thugs herding Tsunami out. _Taking a hostage to force Tazuna's hand,_ Mikoto thought. _What a filthy coward._

Naruto shadowed Gato's thugs as they herded Tsunami across the wooden bridge. Just as he was about to swoop in, he saw Inari charging them, screaming, "Let go of my mother!"

_I guess we were wrong about him, after all,_ Naruto thought._ But he's going to die charging in like that!_

_He doesn't care,_ Mikoto answered._ So long as he saves his mother, he's willing to die doing that. That doesn't mean we have to _let_ him._

Naruto ran toward the scene, changing into Abarekiller as he did. In a rush of near-godly speed, he took down both thugs with the Wing Pentact's sword mode and swooped Tsunami and Inari out of harm's way. By the time he'd stopped, he was back to being "regular" Naruto, and Inari was looking at him with a stunned expression.

"How . . . how did you do that?" he asked.

"It was thanks to you, Inari," Naruto replied. "When I saw you were ready to die to save your mother, I figured I couldn't let you go out like that. So I went in, knocked those guys around a little so they couldn't go after you or your mom anymore, and got you two out of there."

"But how'd you do it that fast?" Inari asked.

"Ninja skills," Naruto answered. "The really good ninja can take out entire armies in the blink of an eye." He smiled warmly at Inari. "You're not pathetic at all. You're a pretty great kid."

To his own surprise, Inari began to cry. "I promised myself I wasn't going to cry anymore! And now you're going to think I'm pathetic again, but I can't stop!"

"It's no shame to cry when you're happy," Naruto said. "Anyway, take care of your mother. I'm gonna make sure your granddad stays safe. Believe it." And then he was off, with Inari shouting behind him, "Believe it!"

* * *

When he reached the bridge, he saw a dome of ice mirrors surrounding Sasuke, Kakashi and Zabuza facing off, and Sakura running toward that dome in an attempt to save Sasuke. She jumped into the air and threw a kunai at one of the mirrors, only for a ninja in a white mask to reach out of that mirror and catch the kunai.

"Let's see him catch this," Naruto muttered, raising the arm bearing his Dino Minder to his mouth. "_Bakuryu Change._"

In a flash of swirling green-yellow energy, the Zero suit replaced Naruto's clothes, transforming him into Abarekiller. In another flash, this time of speed, Naruto drew the Wing Pentact in sword mode and slashed the masked ninja, leaving a deep diagonal slice across his mask and knocking him completely out of the mirror.

"The number-one hyperactive knucklehead ninja . . ." the masked ninja commented.

"What a showoff," the wounded Sasuke groaned.

"Showoff?" Abarekiller echoed. "Is that how you talk about someone who just saved your life?"

"And who the hell is that punk and what does he think he is, dressing like that?" Zabuza asked disdainfully.

_I have the feeling I know, but he seems different, somehow,_ Kakashi thought. _And it's not just the outfit._

"Naruto!" Sakura exclaimed. "How did you pull that off?!"

"Skill, my lovely Sakura-chan," Abarekiller replied coolly. "Skill." He tapped the edge of his sword against his armored shoulder. "And now that I'm here, the tables have turned."

"You talk pretty big for a punk kid in a silly costume," Zabuza sneered, just before throwing four shuriken at the white-armored boy. Abarekiller's answer was to deflect each and every shuriken with his sword in a flurry of lightning-quick swings. "Heh. You've improved."

_He has gotten rather impressive,_ Kakashi admitted. _But he would have been far more effective had he stayed hidden._

"Wait," the masked ninja spoke. "I wish to deal with him myself."

Zabuza growled. "Still too soft . . ."

"And just who do you think you are, hiding behind that mask?" Abarekiller asked. "Pretending you're some kind of hunter ninja when you've been working alongside that bastard all along?"

"You are quite the master of irony," the masked ninja replied. "Do you not hide behind your mask as well?"

"Don't play games with me," Abarekiller snarled. "I'm going to rip your mask off, and I'm going to tear you apart."

He stalked toward the masked ninja, the pointed tip of the hilt aimed at him. He lacerated the air with the pointed tip of his sword, the light trail behind his lacerations forming into arrows that pointed at the masked ninja. With a swoop of his Wing Pentact, Abarekiller fired the light arrows at the masked ninja, who managed to either dodge or deflect them all with his senbon.

Sasuke drew a kunai from his pouch and threw it at the masked ninja, who dodged that as well. "I haven't forgotten about you. Rest assured, we'll finish our fight."

"Finish with him?" Abarekiller commented. "You'll have to get through me first."

The masked ninja's answer was to simply walk into the nearest mirror and seemingly melt into it, his image manifesting in the surface of every mirror comprising the dome. Immediately, a barrage of senbon assaulted Sasuke from all sides of the dome.

"Sasuke!" Sakura and Abarekiller shouted.

Kakashi was assessing his options. He could always go in to save Sasuke, and there was a strong chance of him succeeding in that, but that would leave Sakura alone to guard Tazuna. Sakura had fire, he knew that, but that fire wouldn't be enough to fight someone like Zabuza. Then he remembered Naruto, and his mysterious jump in skill and speed; if he could use that to save Sasuke and help him take down the masked ninja, then that would leave Kakashi free to take down Zabuza.

Yes, he would have to trust Naruto, it seemed. Then he looked at the dome again, and noticed that Naruto wasn't _outside_ anymore; he was _inside!_ "Well, crap. Even with these new skills, his brain hasn't caught up yet apparently."

* * *

Even Mikoto was internally chastising Naruto. _I warned you this wasn't a wise course of action. But no, you wanted to save your comrade. Well, you could have saved him from outside._

_No, I couldn't,_ Naruto answered. _Might have had a better chance of fighting that guy outside, but not a better chance of saving Sasuke._

Sasuke glared at the white-armored boy. "You idiot."

"Is this how you treat the guy who's risking life and limb to save yours?" Abarekiller asked. "Really, some gratitude would be in order here."

"Gratitude?!" Sasuke exclaimed. "You could have done me a lot more good outside!" He turned away, fuming. "Well, I'll finish this." He began forming hand seals, launching, "Fire Release: Grand Fireball Technique!"

A wave of flame issued from Sasuke's mouth, consuming the mirrors. When it extinguished, the mirrors were still standing, but the edges had melted somewhat and there were small water drops marring their surfaces.

"So much for that," Abarekiller commented.

"Shut up," Sasuke spat. "_You_ do better."

"I will." Abarekiller drew his Wing Pentact once again, ready to attack when the masked ninja struck with his barrage of senbon. Abarekiller attempted to deflect them, but they were so numerous that he couldn't get them all, let alone protect Sasuke from them all. Thanks to the armor of his suit, the senbon merely scratched him. Granted, they scratched Sasuke, too, but considering that he wasn't wearing armor, he had it worse than Naruto. "What the hell is this? Clones?"

_No,_ Mikoto answered.

"Look as hard as you want," the masked ninja whispered. "You'll never discover the secret."

Abarekiller chuckled. "All I need to do is attack all of you at once." He lacerated the air again with the tip of his sword hilt, recreating the light arrows. Pointing the sword outward, he launched the light arrows in all directions, only for them to make a lot of noise and not a lot of impact. When the fog from their detonations faded, he could see that the most the arrows had been able to do was slightly crack the mirrors.

"So much for that," Sasuke taunted.

"These mirrors merely reflect my image," the masked ninja explained, "allowing me to transport myself from one to another at light speed. Through my eyes, you appear to be moving in slow motion."

Outside the dome of ice mirrors, Kakashi swore. "No wonder . . . it's a bloodline trait."

"Bloodline trait?" Sakura repeated. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means it's a power he was born with, passed down to him through his blood, his very heredity, and focused into a powerful technique that even I can't copy," Kakashi explained. "There's no defense against this, and no way to stop it."

Inside the dome, Abarekiller glared at the ice mirrors. "You really think I'm going to let you beat me? No dice. I have too much to do, too much to achieve, to let you kill me!"

"Is it a dream you speak of?" the masked ninja asked. "I have one, too. It is to fight for someone precious to me, someone I would walk through the fires of hell for, someone I would risk everything to help achieve his dreams. For that dream, I will fight you . . . just like you will fight me for your dream . . . and I have to, I will become a true shinobi, no matter how much it pains me, and _I will kill you._"

Abarekiller smiled behind his helmet, brandishing his Wing Pentact, as Sasuke stood ready to fight as well.

* * *

End Notes: There you have it, the first chapter of my hopefully epic "Naruto/Super Sentai" cross-fusion. More is definitely on the way, what with the finish of the Land of Waves arc and the beginning of the Chunin Exams. The latter will bring with it other reincarnations of Sentai warriors, and old enemies will join forces to menace the new generation of heroes. Think you can wait for that? If so, hang on for the ride, and see you next time!


	2. Outburst of the Killer King

"Naruto vs. Super Sentai"

Chapter 2: "Outburst of the Killer King"

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, Shonen Jump, and Viz. Super Sentai and all associated characters belong to Toe and TV Asahi. I make no profit whatsoever from this story.

Author's note: Abarekiller has arrived, but just because Naruto has his powers and experience to draw on doesn't mean he's going to get a free ride through his fights. Besides, Haku has more tricks up "his" sleeve and even after that fight's over with, doesn't mean there aren't more fights on the way. Something has reawakened Abarekiller, and may very well reawaken others of his kind. What is it? You'll have to wait and see.

* * *

"Looks like I'll have to try the direct approach," Abarekiller mused. He immediately speed-blitzed the mirrors, slashing at each and every one of them as he passed them at impossible speeds. The masked ninja lunged out of a mirror to attack Abarekiller, only for Abarekiller to block his senbon with his Wing Pentact.

"You're fast," the masked ninja observed. "But you are not fast enough that you can escape or defeat me."

"We'll see about that," Abarekiller retorted, kicking the masked ninja in the stomach.

"Fire Release: Grand Fireball Technique!" Sasuke shouted, exhaling a fireball at the masked ninja as Abarekiller jumped away from him. The masked ninja dodged the fireball and melted back into the safety of the mirrors.

The masked ninja retaliated by throwing a barrage of senbon at Abarekiller and Sasuke from the mirrors, with Abarekiller blocking as many of the needles as he could with his Wing Pentact. "Damn it . . . there's so many . . ." the white-armored boy growled.

"I have an idea," Sasuke said.

"I'm all ears," Abarekiller responded.

"I don't know the limits of that suit, but I know that guy's starting to get tired," Sasuke murmured.

"So you're saying what we have to do is wear him down," Abarekiller surmised. "Get him tired enough, and he'll slow down just enough for us to be able to bring him down."

"Yeah," Sasuke confirmed. "What do you say? You're faster than me in that suit, so you can draw and counter his fire more easily than I can."

"Hmm, you want me to distract him while you figure out his moves," Abarekiller deduced.

"Yeah," Sasuke admitted.

"No problem," Abarekiller answered. He smirked beneath his helmet. "Shadow Clone Technique!"

Immediately, ten more Abarekillers emerged, all brandishing Wing Pentacts. The eleven Abarekillers went into speed-blitzes in separate directions, as the masked ninja leaped out of his mirrors to take them down. Of course, the masked ninja had to fight eleven white-armored boys that were roughly as fast as he was, and they were all perfectly willing to fight him.

_He's slowing down . . ._ Sasuke thought. _I can almost . . . see him . . ._

The masked ninja managed to take down five of Abarekiller's clones, but the remaining five and the real one were still fighting him. Sasuke launched another fireball at him, as the six Abarekillers jumped out of the way. The masked ninja was barely able to escape back into his mirrors, having been somewhat winded by fighting Abarekiller and his clones, and Sasuke was gratified to see a burn mark on his hakama.

"What do we do?" one Abarekiller asked Sasuke.

"Keep at it," Sasuke replied. "Keep drawing his fire, keep forcing him out, and we'll be able to take him down sooner or later."

"Whatever you say," another Abarekiller remarked sardonically.

The six Abarekillers ran in six different directions, drawing out the masked ninja again as he tried to stop them. They all brandished their Wing Pentacts, swinging at the masked ninja as he attempted to cut them down with his senbon. Despite their best efforts, he did manage to finish all but one clone and the real Abarekiller, and the real Abarekiller had managed to jump behind the masked ninja.

Both Abarekillers lacerated the air with their Wing Pentacts, leaving behind arrows of golden light hovering in midair, which they launched at the masked ninja. The masked ninja dodged all but one of the arrows, which scratched his ankle. Despite the scratching of his ankle, he managed to take down the last clone of Abarekiller, only to find himself barely evading another fireball from Sasuke.

"Your plan's working," Abarekiller said to Sasuke.

"Yeah," Sasuke agreed. "He's slowing down."

The masked ninja looked at the two boys with worry. _How are they doing this? They should be down by now, but they aren't. It's time I finished this, once and for all. Zabuza needs me._

Immediately, Abarekiller and Sasuke were both assaulted with a barrage of senbon. This time, Abarekiller dodged the senbon and retaliated with the light arrows formed by his Wing Pentact. Again, all the arrows did was put cracks in the Ice Mirrors. Just as Abarekiller was about to try again, he and Sasuke heard a scream.

"Sakura!" Abarekiller shouted.

"We . . . we have to get out of here," Sasuke murmured.

"What the hell is happening out there?" Abarekiller wondered.

"We need to end this," Sasuke snarled.

"On that much, we agree," the masked ninja remarked, assaulting them again with a barrage of senbon. This time, Sasuke was caught in the arm and the leg by two senbon, and Abarekiller was hit so hard he couldn't dodge them all and got knocked down. The blast came with so much force that it temporarily overloaded his Dino Minder, forcing him to power down the Zero suit.

"Naruto?" Sasuke asked.

"Sorry, but I guess I found the limits of this thing after all," Naruto replied. He slowly began to rise to his feet, only for the masked ninja to attack him again with a senbon barrage that caught him in his arms and legs. "Damn . . . what was I thinking?"

Just as the masked ninja was about to finish Naruto off, Sasuke lunged forward, picked up a senbon, and used it to block the masked ninja's attacks with surprising speed and accuracy. The masked ninja merely poured it on harder, but Sasuke simply stepped up his efforts, much to the masked ninja's simultaneous annoyance and admiration.

"It seems your friend has found his limits," the masked ninja mused aloud. "And you are quickly finding yours as well."

* * *

Outside the dome, Kakashi was locked in battle with Zabuza, having unfortunately found that Zabuza didn't even need his eyes to track and fight his opponent. Zabuza had engulfed the entire bridge in his Hidden Mist Technique, leaving Kakashi effectively blind. As Zabuza fought Kakashi, he was wondering what was taking Haku so long to kill those two boys, particularly the showy bastard in the white outfit.

"What's taking so long?" Zabuza asked. "Haku should have been through with them."

"They're a lot harder to kill than you think," Kakashi retorted. "For one, Naruto Uzumaki is unsurpassed in surprising his enemies. For another, his partner in there is Sasuke _Uchiha._"

"Uchiha?" Zabuza echoed with an amused chuckle. "Yes, I heard one young ninja survived that particular massacre. Looks like Haku will have to go to town on them now."

* * *

Inside the dome of mirrors, Sasuke continued to block the masked ninja's senbon attacks, while noticing that his vision had somehow become clearer and sharper, allowing him to see his enemy's attacks more easily.

_I can see him! It's not perfect, but I can see him!_ Sasuke thought triumphantly.

_I'm not going to get anywhere attacking him,_ the masked ninja, Haku, thought. _But his comrade . . . if I go for him instead . . ._

He immediately leaped out of the mirror, moving to attack Naruto, who was about to transform to defend himself. To his surprise, Sasuke had lunged in front of him, deflecting Haku's attack with his own body.

"Sasuke!" Naruto exclaimed.

"You damned loser . . ." Sasuke muttered. "Always in the way . . ."

"Well, you didn't have to protect me!" Naruto yelled. "I could have saved myself!"

Sasuke chuckled painfully. "You . . . think so? Loser." He collapsed backward, and Naruto caught him, at which point he saw that Sasuke's body was practically a pincushion. "I . . . I hated you . . ."

"Then why?" Naruto asked angrily. "Why do it?"

"My body just moved on its own," Sasuke groaned. "I saw him about to attack you, and I . . . reacted. I swore, I swore I wouldn't die until I faced my brother, the man I swore to kill. Please, Naruto . . . don't let your dream die . . ."

And those were Sasuke's last words as he passed into what some would euphemize as "the big sleep."

"Damn you . . ." Naruto growled. "You didn't have to protect me. I hated you, too, and yet . . . damn you . . . damn you . . ."

"Is this the first time you've seen a comrade die?" Haku asked. "That is what it means to be shinobi. Your friend did not die in vain. He fought with honor, earning the shinobi title a thousand times over." He melted back into the safety of the mirrors.

"Shut up," Naruto growled, feeling rage bubble up inside him, a rage more powerful than anything he'd ever felt in his life. He lifted the arm holding his Dino Minder and pressed the activation button on it. "_Bakuryu Change._"

The transformation wasn't like the one before it. No, this one came with a sudden rush of power that felt like his body was being simultaneously deconstructed and reconstructed. Screaming his rage, a spiral of crimson chakra surrounded him, with the golden power of his Dino Guts framing his body.

_What is this?_ Haku wondered. _Chakra cannot be seen, and yet . . . his is visible. More than that, I can taste his bloodlust, his fury . . . like evil itself._

* * *

Outside the dome, Kakashi and Zabuza were internally panicking from feeling the poisonous chakra in the air.

_Is this . . . could this be Kakashi's doing, this foul chakra? No, it's too strong, even for him!_

_Is Zabuza doing this? No. No, it's Naruto! The Nine-Tailed Fox is breaking free of its seal, and now of all times!_

* * *

Inside the dome, Naruto's transformation into Abarekiller had completed itself, only with the black claw marks on his suit having extended into black spikes. The black triangular pads on the backs of his gloves had also extended, into long, arrow-like blades. He rose to his feet and turned slowly to Haku.

"_**You're going to die,"**_ he snarled, his voice unnaturally deep and cold.

_Here he comes!_ Haku thought, preparing himself for Abarekiller's attack, boosted not only by Abare Mode, but also by a fraction of the Nine-Tailed Fox's power. He threw a barrage of senbon at him, but Abarekiller deflected them all with the blades extending from his hands. He then used those same blades to start cutting through the mirrors.

_What is he?_ Haku wondered. _First that suit, and now this power . . . this isn't a boy I'm dealing with anymore. It's some kind of demon._

With a mighty swing of both hand-blades, Abarekiller generated a slicing energy wave that shattered even more mirrors, one of which Haku jumped out of to attack Abarekiller, who dodged his assault. When Haku attempted to strike him down with a senbon, Abarekiller blocked with one of his hand-blades.

Realizing he couldn't win, Haku attempted to escape into one of the remaining Ice Mirrors, but Abarekiller was faster and brutally kicked him through one of the mirrors, knocking him outside the incomplete dome of mirrors and sending him tumbling down the bridge. Haku struggled to get up, but he realized what had happened. His opponent was too strong now, even for him, and he realized that his life was now forfeit.

_Forgive me, Zabuza-sama,_ he thought. _I've failed you. This boy is too strong._

Indeed, Abarekiller was rushing to finish off Haku, but Haku's mask was breaking, revealing his face piece by falling piece. Just as Abarekiller was about to strike the finishing blow, Haku's mask had completely fallen off, revealing the face of the very "girl" he'd met in the forest after his first transformation.

_No . . ._ Naruto thought, and immediately powered down the Zero suit. Of course, inertia was a cruel mistress and he still punched Haku in the face, knocking him down.

"Is that all the force you can muster?" Haku asked softly. "If that's all you can do, there's no way you'll be able to kill me."

Naruto smiled bitterly. "And what if I don't want to kill you anymore?"

"You promised you would avenge your comrade," Haku retorted. "If you don't kill me, then that means you didn't care about him as much as you would like to think."

"What would you know about my feelings?" Naruto asked. "You're the one who devoted your life to a scumbag like Zabuza."

"Do you want to know why?" Haku asked. "It is because . . . he was the only one who would look at me, the only one who needed me."

"What about your parents?" Naruto inquired. "Your mom, your dad, didn't they need you?"

"No," Haku replied sadly. "Not anymore."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Naruto asked harshly.

"I was born in a village in the Land of Water where it always snowed," Haku explained. "My land had been, for quite a long time, been caught in the midst of beastly civil wars in one shape or another. In many cases, people like me, with powers passed down through our very bloodlines, were used as tools of warfare fighting for one side or the other. As a result, the people came to fear those with bloodline traits, to the point that they sought the complete extermination of any family with blood-inherited powers.

"My mother was one of those people. She managed to escape to the land where I was born, falling in love with a simple farmer and bearing his child – me. We were poor, and our lives were hard, but we were happy, because we were with each other. Then one day, I discovered what I could do. My mother warned me to hide my power, but my father had already seen, and he organized a mob to kill my mother and then me. To defend myself, I was forced to kill him and the mob he had brought.

"After that, I was left to fend for myself. There was no one who wanted me, no one who needed me. I was left without any purpose at all in this world, and that was worse than any kind of death I could have experienced. Then one day, Zabuza came. He had just forsaken his allegiance to the Village Hidden in the Mist, and was in need of a partner, an apprentice.

"He saw me . . . when no one else did. No matter what he needed me to do, I would do it without hesitation, without question, because he saw me when no one else would. That was why I chose to follow him, to study under him, to fight for him and his dream."

Naruto looked at Haku, not sure if he wanted to cry after hearing his story or just kill him and be through with it. On the one hand, he could understand what it was like to feel unwanted, unneeded; he'd felt that all his life before Iruka, Kakashi, Sakura, and Sasuke had come into his life. On the other hand, one of those people was _dead_ because of Haku, and vengeance needed to be had for that.

Finally, he managed to speak. "We're a lot alike, I guess. And if it wasn't for this, we could have been friends." _Maybe more,_ he added silently.

"I want you to kill me," Haku declared. "I am a broken tool, no longer of use to Zabuza-sama. Zabuza has no need of a broken tool, and thus I am once more unnecessary. I do not wish to live like that."

"You can be more than a tool," Naruto retorted. "You don't have to live your entire life thinking of yourself as nothing more than an instrument of someone else's ambition. There's more to being a shinobi than just being someone else's weapon!"

"That is all there is to it," Haku insisted sadly. "As shinobi, we are no more than weapons, and a weapon that cannot function is not a weapon that deserves to exist in this world. Kill me. Avenge your comrade. He was precious to you, wasn't he?"

* * *

Meanwhile, Kakashi had managed to trap Zabuza with the Earth Release: Tracking Fang Technique, a summon technique that used his ninja dogs to sniff out Zabuza and then restrain him. It was relatively easy, in light of the fact that his blood was still on Zabuza's weapon and thus his dogs had something to track the missing ninja by.

"Zabuza, Zabuza, Zabuza," Kakashi intoned semi-ruefully. "Always pushing things too far. You tried to overthrow the Mizukage, and when that didn't work out, you fled Kirigakure with the few followers you had left. And you're just deluded enough to think you can succeed the next time you try it, but to try it again, you need money, and you've stooped so low as to be the hired thug of a piece of trash like Gato."

"Your point?" Zabuza asked.

"We're going to finish this," Kakashi replied. "But not with Sharingan, hollow replications of some other ninja's tricks. No, you're going to die by my own technique." He immediately began performing hand seals, finishing with the palm of his right hand turned up and his left hand gripping his wrist. Lightning chakra surrounded Kakashi, gathering itself in his right hand. "Lightning Blade!"

_What the hell is this?_ Zabuza wondered. _His chakra is so strong I can see it! What kind of technique is this?_

"You're a virus," Kakashi stated coldly. "Infecting and decaying everything you touch. Tazuna is a brave man, and this bridge represents the hope of his people. But you'd destroy all that without any regret, wouldn't you? That's not how shinobi do things."

"You're right," Zabuza whispered. "I have no regrets! I fight for myself! For my own dreams! What do these people and their petty little dreams matter to me?"

"But to have a dream, you need to have a future," Kakashi retorted. "You don't. It's all used up, and all that's waiting for you now is a cold grave."

He charged at Zabuza, ready to plunge his Lightning Blade into Zabuza's heart.

* * *

At that same moment, Naruto had reluctantly drawn his kunai and was rushing toward Haku, ready to kill him. After all, as much as he didn't want to, Haku had asked him to . . . and Sasuke had his dreams, too. Dreams he would never achieve now, because of Haku, and that had to be accounted for.

Just as Naruto had reached Haku, though, Haku had grabbed his arm to block him. "I'm sorry, Naruto. But I cannot die just yet." With one hand restraining Naruto, Haku used his other hand to form the seals for a Demonic Ice Mirror that he immediately leaped into, leaving Naruto by himself.

_What would make him change his mind like that?_ Naruto wondered.

_Zabuza must be in danger,_ Mikoto answered. _And that means . . ._

_Haku's going to die saving him!_ Naruto finished, taking off toward where he figured Kakashi and Zabuza were. As he did, he changed into the Zero suit with a singular call of "Bakuryu Change," and then used a burst of godly speed to intercept Kakashi's Lightning Blade with a strike from his sword and Haku with a kick to the stomach. Having stopped them both, he landed in a crouch, as Kakashi's summoned dogs disappeared thanks to Haku having had just enough time to neutralize Kakashi's contract scroll.

* * *

"What do you think you're doing, Naruto?" Kakashi asked.

"You would have killed Haku if I hadn't stopped you," Abarekiller replied.

"Gee, thanks, kid," Zabuza sneered. "I'm so touched you care."

"Shut up, Zabuza," Abarekiller snarled. "I didn't do it for you. You're finished, anyway."

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted. "Where's Sasuke? Did you both make it out ok?"

"No . . ." Abarekiller replied sadly. "He didn't make it."

Just then, Sakura could see Sasuke's needle-riddled body, and she had to stifle her immediate impulse to cry. Tazuna looked at her understandingly. "I'll take you to him," he said. "That way you don't have to leave my side."

* * *

Tazuna followed Sakura to Sasuke's body, and when they had reached him, she got down on her knees, touching his cheek. "He's really cold . . . this isn't a genjutsu trick, is it?" she murmured, trembling. "It's real. He's really . . . really dead."

Tazuna looked at Sakura sadly.

"Did you know that I memorized all one hundred shinobi principles?" Sakura asked mournfully. "I got them all right, every time there was a test on them. I used to love it, the chance to show how smart I was. There was one in particular I got just right, the 25th. Did you know what that was?" Her voice nearly broke there, but she found just enough will to press on. "A shinobi must never show his emotions. At all times, he must focus on the mission and not let feelings get in the way."

As she pronounced that principle, she broke down completely and cried on Sasuke's body, leaving Tazuna, Kakashi, Naruto, and Haku to twist in the wind with their own sorrow at her heartbreak. _If this is the shinobi way,_ Tazuna thought, _you can have it._

* * *

Naruto clenched his gloved hand into a fist, just as the tap of a walking stick brought him out of his mournful reverie. He, Kakashi, Zabuza, and Haku turned to see Gato and a small legion of thugs on the bridge. "Gato . . ." Zabuza snarled. "What are you doing here?"

"Zabuza?" Gato asked. "What happened to you? Got beaten up by a bunch of kids? Ha, some demon you are. You're about as demonic as a wet kitten!"

Zabuza growled angrily. "What are you doing here?"

"Ninja like you and your little toy are expensive," Gato replied. "So I've decided to cut you off the payroll, although I might find a use for the girl." He smirked at the startled looks on Zabuza's and Haku's faces. "Did you really think I wouldn't know what you were trying to pull? I never understood why girls felt they needed to masquerade as boys to get anywhere in life. They'd be perfectly fine as they are!" He laughed cruelly.

Underneath his helmet, Naruto's face twisted in anger. "You gonna let him talk about your partner like that?" he asked Zabuza.

"What do I care?" Zabuza asked. "Haku is my tool, nothing more."

"You serious?" Naruto asked angrily. "Are you serious?! Haku would do anything for you! You saved her from a life of loneliness and empty despair! She'd do anything to repay you for that, and you know it! That's how you could exploit her all those years, taking advantage of her loyalty, her desire to be useful to the one person who thought she mattered at all! You don't get that?! You don't get that she loves you?!"

"Love?" Zabuza echoed. "What use do we have for things like that?"

Abarekiller punched Zabuza in the face, unable to take anymore. "I can't believe . . . that you could be that cold . . . and that she could still love you, anyway. But she does. She does, even though you haven't done anything to deserve it!"

Zabuza looked at Abarekiller, then at Haku's seemingly placid face, into her brown eyes, and then back at Abarekiller. To Abarekiller's surprise, there were tears in his eyes. "Shut up. Just shut up. You talk too much."

Kakashi was rather surprised, too. The Demon Hidden in the Mist, crying?

"Haku's always been too soft and too kind. Her heart was breaking, the whole time she was fighting you and your friend. And you're right, I did exploit her; despite her compassion for you and your friend, her loyalty to me won out over her heart. Compassion, sorrow, even love – those things were not for me, and yet, because of her, I feel them now!"

Haku found it in herself to smile sadly. She'd always known, deep in her heart, that Zabuza cared about her in some way, but the depth of his feelings she'd never understood until this moment.

"And you." He turned to Abarekiller. "You care about her, don't you? That's why you couldn't kill her, even when she asked you to. That's why you saved her, even though she wanted to die protecting me. You know, what it's been like for her, don't you? That's why you care so much. Or are you just that soft that you can't even kill someone who killed your friend?"

"Oh, enough of this sappy crap!" Gato exclaimed. "It's making me sick." He turned to his thugs. "Now let's take out the trash!"

"Yes," Abarekiller growled, his voice going low and cold as he brandished his Wing Pentact. "Let's take out the trash." He looked at Zabuza, and a look of understanding formed on Zabuza's face as he picked up his own sword.

"Heh," Zabuza chuckled. "Let's see what you can do, kid."

Both Abarekiller and Zabuza charged into Gato's mob of thugs, fighting through them to get to Gato. They wound up back to back, guarding each other against attacks from the thugs. "Hey, Zabuza . . . how about you get Gato while I take care of this trash?" Abarekiller suggested.

"I was going to take him out myself after I was done with the bridge builder and your sensei, but no problem," Zabuza answered with a feral smirk beneath the bandages covering his lower face. He barreled through the thugs, using his sword and his legs to dispose of them. Abarekiller lacerated the air to make more light arrows that he fired at the thugs trying to protect Gato, who now had a look of sheer terror on his face as Zabuza approached him.

"He's . . . he's a devil!"

"That's right, you son of a bitch," Zabuza growled when he reached Gato. "I'm a devil. Wait for me in hell. When I get there, I'll look you up . . . and I'll make your eternity worse." He sliced Gato's head off with his sword and kicked both head and body into the ocean.

"Damn it!" one of the thugs shouted, when they saw Gato's gruesome end. "Now who's gonna pay us?"

"I say we go into that village and see what they've got!" another thug shouted.

At that moment, a crossbow bolt landed in the midst of the thugs that Zabuza and Abarekiller hadn't taken out yet. Abarekiller turned, and saw a legion of villagers, led by a crossbow-wielding Inari with Tsunami at his side, standing there ready to fight.

"You're not setting one foot inside our village!" Inari declared.

Abarekiller looked at Inari and nodded to him before forming ten Shadow Clones, all of which were brandishing Wing Pentacts. Kakashi smiled beneath his mask and performed a simple Clone Technique, using his remaining chakra to create a virtual army of (technically) insubstantial clones. Haku brandished her senbon, and Zabuza brandished his own sword.

The thugs decided that discretion was the better part of valor, and immediately jumped off the bridge, trying to escape by way of the ocean and the boats waiting for them.

"We did it!" Inari cheered.

"Yeah," Abarekiller agreed, dispelling his clones and powering down the Zero suit. "We did it."

* * *

Meanwhile, Sasuke's eyes opened, and he found Sakura on top of him, bawling her eyes out. "Sakura? You're kinda heavy."

"Sasuke?" Sakura uttered through her tears. When she saw him alive, she hugged him. "Sasuke! You're alive!"

Naruto heard her shout and shouted back, "He's alive!?"

Sakura and Sasuke looked back at Naruto, and Naruto looked at Haku, stunned. "You didn't kill him?"

"No," Haku admitted. "I simply placed him in a temporary deathlike state, like I did with Zabuza-sama to get him away from your sensei before he really could kill him."

"So you never intended to kill us after all," Naruto concluded.

"No," Haku confessed.

"A soul as pure as the driven snow," Kakashi murmured to himself. "I never thought I'd find that here."

* * *

One more week had passed, during which the bridge had been completed, Naruto and Haku had gotten to know each other, and Kakashi and Zabuza had established a less-than-friendly rivalry. When everything was done and it was time for Team 7 to return to Konoha, Kakashi asked Zabuza and Haku this one question.

"What will you do now?"

"We'll stay here," Haku replied. "This village has been willing to accept us, despite what we did while working for Gato. We've decided to repay their kindness by acting as their protectors. I intend to become a medic here."

"You'd do a great job of that," Naruto remarked.

Zabuza scoffed lightly. "Yeah. She would. Just her style." There was no contempt in his voice, just quiet affection.

"What about the real hunter ninja that'll probably still be after you?" Kakashi asked.

"We'll worry about that," Zabuza replied tersely. "You just get back to your village and prepare for our next fight."

"We are grateful to you, though, Naruto," Haku said. "If it wasn't for our meeting, we might never have gotten this second chance."

"Everyone deserves a second chance," Naruto answered.

_I suppose so,_ Mikoto agreed somberly in Naruto's mind.

"What are you going to name the bridge, Tazuna?" Sakura asked.

"We need a name that embodies courage, tenacity, and iron will," Tazuna mused. "Hmm, I think I know just the name. The Great Naruto Bridge."

"Wow, you're really gonna name this bridge after me?" Naruto asked.

"Why not?" Tazuna asked. "If it wasn't for what you did with Inari, we might never have found the courage to fight Gato."

Naruto smiled.

"You're gonna visit some time, won't you?" Inari asked, his voice thick.

"Sure I will," Naruto replied. "And if you want to cry, you can. It's no shame."

"Then why don't you cry?" Inari asked.

Indeed, Naruto himself was holding back tears. "Heh, you're right." They hugged each other and wept openly. "I'm gonna miss you, buddy! Take care of yourself and your mom and grandpa, all right?"

"I will!" Inari vowed through his tears. "Thank you!"

Sakura looked nonplussed at Naruto and Inari. "Boys can be so weird."

Haku smiled amiably at Sakura, who flushed red and looked away. _I still can't believe she's so pretty!_

_**Hell, no!**_ Inner Sakura yelled. _**She's not getting **_**my**_** Sasuke!**_

_Um, actually, I think she might be more into Naruto,_ Sakura mused.

_**Hell, no!**_ Inner Sakura yelled, punching the air. _**Naruto?! Of all guys!? That bitch has taste!**_

_Huh?_

_**Naruto's gotten hot lately. Must be that growth spurt! But he's not nearly as hot as Sasuke!**_

Just then, Sakura and Inner Sakura were interrupted by Haku giving Naruto a parting kiss . . . on the lips. Naruto was surprised, but he did reciprocate a little, once he figured out what she wanted. She pulled back and smiled at him, her eyes betraying only a small twinkle of contentment.

"Visit soon," she said.

"I will," Naruto replied.

_**Oh, hell no!**_ Inner Sakura shouted. _**That bitch can't have Naruto!**_

_I thought we wanted Sasuke._ Sakura was confused.

_**Well, she can't have him!**_ Inner Sakura yelled.

Zabuza watched Naruto and Haku with a small smile beneath his bandages, but he sent a warning glare at Naruto, who froze in his tracks before nodding briefly in understanding. Then Team 7 was on their way back to Konoha, with a freshly completed A-rank mission under their belts. Of course, that wouldn't be the end of Team 7's adventures, not with Abarekiller having awakened inside Naruto . . . and something else starting to rise within Sasuke, like a lion waking from its slumber.

* * *

End Notes: There you go; the complete second chapter of "Naruto vs. Super Sentai." As you can tell from that ending sentence, Sasuke is going to get his own Sentai warrior awakening, and it's going to be big! Will this new power change his fate, or will he ultimately choose to walk the same path as before? And will Zabuza and Haku be seen again? You'll have to find out by continuing to read and hanging on for the next chapters! Thanks for reading.


	3. The Black Lion Is Stirring

"Naruto vs. Super Sentai"

Chapter 3: "The Black Lion Is Stirring"

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, Shonen Jump, and Viz. Super Sentai belongs to Toei and TV Asahi. I make no money whatsoever from this story.

Author's note: All right, so we've gotten off to a good start with Naruto becoming the new Abarekiller and being guided by the spirit of the original. But what other Sentai reincarnations will emerge, and what is causing them to emerge in the first place? Answers will be revealed, as the Chunin Exams are on the horizon. Let's Go-on!

_

* * *

_

My students are an interesting bunch,

Kakashi Hatake thought to himself.

At first, he had dismissed Naruto Uzumaki as someone whose bark was a lot louder than his bite gave him any right to be, just another no-talent punk like he'd once judged his best friend Obito. No, that hadn't been the real reason for his distance; if all there had been to it was his apparent lack of ability, he'd have trained some into him. No, the real reason was that Naruto had reminded him in far too many ways of the two that had meant the most to him.

His best friend, Obito Uchiha . . . and his mentor and second father, Minato Namikaze. Out of the three students he had, Naruto had most taken to heart what Kakashi himself had learned so long ago from Obito. That was why he'd saved that girl . . . and even the man he would have killed if not for Naruto's interference.

That was something else that puzzled Kakashi about the boy. Where the hell had he gotten that white armor? Where did he learn how to wield a sword like that, or fight like he had some clue of what he was doing? And why did he sometimes seem like an entirely different person since that mission?

Sasuke Uchiha was another interesting case. The Wave mission had been difficult on him, too, at least if Kakashi judged by the intensity with which he'd focused on training since returning to Konoha. He'd also noticed certain changes in Sasuke's fighting style, namely the barely repressed fury in his moves. It was almost like Sasuke was struggling to tame some horrible beast clawing at him from the inside.

Was it jealousy of Naruto that provoked this change? It wouldn't be surprising; like Kakashi, Sasuke had underestimated Naruto as well. Of course, being apparently outdone by Naruto in tree-walking and in fighting a jonin-level missing-nin would cause someone used to being the undisputed "best" to rethink that assumption.

Then there was Sakura Haruno. She had so much potential, if her chakra control was anything to go by, and yet it was utterly wasted because of her refusal to apply herself to anything other than trying to impress Sasuke. It was a shame there wasn't much he could teach her one-on-one; she was perfect for genjutsu and ninjutsu requiring fine control of one's chakra, but that was more Kurenai Yuhi's specialty than his. Nevertheless, even if he couldn't teach her proper ninjutsu, he could at least firm up her taijutsu.

In the meantime, he had to go to a meeting of the jonin-instructors. The Chunin Exams were coming up, and they were going to decide just which of their students were fit to participate and which weren't. Kakashi smiled briefly beneath his mask. It would certainly be interesting, and he was looking forward to needling Asuma Sarutobi and Kurenai on when they were going to get together.

* * *

At that meeting, the Hokage asked all the jonin-instructors assembled whether they believed their students were ready.

"I'd say my youthful students are perfectly ready," Might Guy declared. "They've had a year's worth of experience in the field. Yes. I, Might Guy, nominate Rock Lee, Tenten, and Neji Hyuga for the Chunin Exams."

"I, Kurenai Yuhi, nominate Kiba Inuzuka, Hinata Hyuga, and Shino Aburame for the Chunin Exams."

"I, Asuma Sarutobi, nominate Choji Akimichi, Ino Yamanaka, and Shikamaru Nara for the Chunin Exams."

"And you, Kakashi?" the Hokage prompted.

Kakashi sighed coolly and spoke. "I, Kakashi Hatake, nominate Naruto Uzumaki, Sakura Haruno, and Sasuke Uchiha for the Chunin Exams."

Iruka Umino, the Academy instructor for the Rookie Nine, was not pleased. No, "not pleased" was an understatement. "Pissed off and ready to take some heads" was a better definition of how displeased he was.

"You can't be serious!" Iruka exclaimed. "They're not even a few months out of the Academy, and you're already throwing them to the wolves!? The genin that are going to be coming into these exams from outside the village are more experienced than ours! They'll slaughter them like sheep!"

"O, ye of little faith," Kakashi remarked.

"Yeah, me of little faith . . . how about you of little common sense?" Iruka retorted.

"They're not your students anymore, Iruka," Kakashi answered calmly, but with a hint of ice in his tone. "And they cannot be sheltered from the real world of shinobi any longer. Yes, these other genin might be more experienced . . . but are they more skilled? Are they more resolute? Do their inner fires burn brighter than the Will of Fire we've instilled into our genin?"

"Iruka, Kakashi," the Hokage spoke up. "That'll be enough. I trust that they all know what they're doing."

"For the students' sakes, I hope you're right," Iruka acceded, although Kakashi couldn't help but hear a note of "especially Naruto's sake." Kakashi nodded quietly to him, doing his best to nonverbally assure him that Naruto would be all right.

* * *

Meanwhile, Naruto Uzumaki was just wandering the village, not really mindful of the harsh looks he was getting from the villagers. He merely returned those harsh looks with a look of serene malice and calmly whistling a song underneath his breath. Since returning to Konoha from his mission in Wave, he'd been thinking a lot about the way of the shinobi.

Ninja like Zabuza and Haku led such lonely, miserable lives. That wasn't how life was supposed to be, for anyone. That was why he was going to become Hokage, so he could create a world where no one would have to be lonely or miserable, where everyone would know that they were loved and valued by at least one person. High above him, so high as to be invisible to nearly everyone but him, was his Bakuryu . . . TopGaler.

_Human,_ TopGaler whispered to him from his Dino Minder. _Do you really think you can accomplish that so easily?_

_I can and I will,_ Naruto answered. _This way of the shinobi is horrible. It turns human beings into tools to be used and discarded by other human beings. It is not something I will stand for._

_It is a fact of life, Naruto Uzumaki,_ Mikoto Nakadai brought up. _Humans use each other in many ways. This is just one of them._

_It's not right,_ Naruto rejoined.

_No, but it is the way of the world, the way of humanity,_ Mikoto answered.

Just then, Naruto spotted a large block moving next to him. He smiled. "Konohamaru, you can come out now."

"Can't get past you, can I, Boss?" Konohamaru's voice remarked as he popped out of the block disguise, along with his two friends Udon and Moegi. "Wanna play ninja with us, Boss?"

"I would, but I've got some training to do," Naruto replied. "But when I'm done, how about we play?"

"A ninja playing ninja," Sakura remarked. "That's kind of weird."

"No, it isn't!" Naruto retorted.

"Hey, Boss, is she your girlfriend?" Konohamaru asked.

"He wishes!" Sakura yelled.

"You can do better, Boss, you can totally do better," Konohamaru scoffed. "She's not that pretty, and her forehead is way too big."

"Why, you –!" Sakura yelled and gave chase to Konohamaru, who was running to avoid Sakura's wrath. Naruto was running after them to save Konohamaru's life; Grandpa Hokage wouldn't like it if he found out his grandson had been royally messed up by Naruto's teammate. And somehow, he doubted the Hokage would buy "he insulted her forehead" as an excuse.

_Human females,_ TopGaler grumbled. _Insane, the entire lot of them._

_They're not all crazy,_ Mikoto contested.

_Then why are you a virgin?_ Naruto asked.

_Why are you?_ Mikoto retorted.

Their "insipid argument," as TopGaler would call it, about virginity and manhood and other things TopGaler found only interested humans ended when they saw Konohamaru bump into an older boy in what looked like a black Kabuki costume and purple makeup. A quick look at the boy's identifier headband made it clear that he wasn't a local – and he looked pissed, too.

_This is not going to end well,_ Mikoto observed.

"I hate little brats like you," the Kabuki boy snarled, grabbing Konohamaru by his scarf.

"Let him go!" Sakura yelled.

"And what'll you do if I don't?" the boy asked.

"Come on, Kankuro, leave him alone, it was an accident," the older girl beside him, wearing what looked like an off-the-shoulder lavender dress with fishnets underneath, pleaded.

"You really ought to listen to her," Naruto suggested. "It'll be better for your health!"

"And who do you think you are, punk?" Kankuro asked.

Naruto calmly walked over to Kankuro and gave him a steely glare. "You'll let my friend go . . . or you'll lose your arm."

"You threatening me, punk?" Kankuro asked.

"No. I'm making a promise," Naruto retorted.

Kankuro dropped Konohamaru and was about to punch Naruto in the face when Naruto merely raised his index and middle fingers and swiped them at Kankuro's arm. Unbeknownst to Kankuro, Naruto's index and middle fingers had been tipped with a chakra blade that neatly sliced through his clothing, flesh, and even muscles. Naruto had kept his promise. Kankuro's arm was now useless.

"You bastard!" Kankuro yelled, and was about to attack Naruto again with his remaining arm when a small rock struck him in the shoulder. He whirled around and saw Sasuke sitting in the tree above them, staring almost disinterestedly at him. "Where do you punks keep coming from?"

"This is our village," Sasuke answered. "What are you doing here?"

"We're here for the Chunin Exams," the older girl, whose hair Naruto noticed was tied in four spiky ponytails, responded. She displayed her passport, which identified her as Temari, a kunoichi from the Village Hidden in the Sand.

"Kankuro . . . you disgrace . . ." a cold voice rasped.

Sasuke looked and saw a red-haired boy with dark circles around his eyes and carrying a giant gourd on his back standing upside down on the tree branch opposite his. _How did he do that? Only jonin on Kakashi's level are that smooth._

"Gaara . . . I . . ." Kankuro stammered.

"Shut up," Gaara rasped. "Before I decide it's worth killing you." He turned to Sakura and Naruto. "I apologize for him." Using sand to disguise a Body Flicker, Gaara moved to the side of his fellow genin, who were noticeably frightened by his presence.

"Who are you, anyway?" Sasuke asked, jumping down from the tree to land beside Sakura and Naruto.

"Gaara of the Sand," Gaara replied. "Who are _you?_"

"Sasuke Uchiha."

Gaara looked at him, and then at Naruto, cold aqua eyes meeting steely blue. "And you. I'd like to know the name of the one who injured my brother."

"Naruto Uzumaki."

"Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki," Gaara rasped. "I look forward to meeting you again."

And then the three Sand genin were on their way, although not before Temari gave Sasuke and Naruto a coldly analytical stare. It might have just been Naruto's imagination, but Temari seemed to smirk when her eyes landed on him.

_Those three are trouble,_ TopGaler spoke. _Especially the one with the gourd._

_What about the girl?_ Mikoto asked.

_She's trouble in an entirely different way,_ TopGaler replied.

"Naruto?" Sakura asked. "How did you do that?"

"Do what?" Naruto asked.

"The thing where you damn near cut off that guy's arm!" Sakura clarified irritably. "How did you do that?! That's a medical ninjutsu!"

"I've been studying," Naruto replied. "Anyway, did you hear about any Chunin Exams, because I didn't?"

"The Chunin Exams," Sasuke murmured. "I've heard about those. They're supposed to come around twice a year roughly, and they're some kind of test to see who gets to move on to the next ninja rank."

"That's right, Sasuke," Kakashi said. "And you three are all nominated to participate." He handed them each a form. "This is how you get in. But you're all going to have to go in as a team or you don't get in at all." He smiled under his mask, which manifested as a crinkle of his visible eye. "Don't worry about it, you don't have to decide now. Three days' time will do nicely enough."

"Three days?" Naruto repeated.

"Yes," Kakashi replied. "Good luck, whatever you decide." And then he vanished using the Body Flicker, obscuring his movements with a whirlwind of leaves.

* * *

Three days of preparation and contemplation passed, and when they were over, Team 7 headed for the building where everyone that was participating in the Chunin Exams would turn in their applications. When they reached that building, they began looking for Room 301, and they found it.

On the second floor.

"What the hell?" Naruto asked. "What kind of nonsense is this?"

"Sorry, kid," a genin standing at the door remarked. "That's what happens when you come too late."

"What do you mean, 'too late'?" Sakura asked. "It's not even three o'clock yet!"

"Wait a second . . ." Sasuke said. He glared at the genin. "Drop the genjutsu. Now."

"And you know it's a genjutsu how?" the genin retorted warily.

"Because this is the second floor," Sasuke replied. "And therefore the room numbers should start with '2,' not '3.'"

"Well, at least you can count," the genin remarked.

"Figures," Naruto muttered. "What is this, some kind of twisted test?"

"Kinda, yeah," the genin confirmed. "If you can't even apply simple logic to seeing past an obvious trick, you're really too stupid to be a chunin."

Naruto's left eyebrow twitched. "Thanks."

Thus, Team 7 was about to go on their way, when two slightly older teens stopped them in their tracks. One had long brown hair and pale eyes and wore a black identifier headband along with tape around his right arm and leg. The other had brown hair as well, styled in twin odango, and wore a pink mandarin shirt and green pants.

"And just who do you think you are?" the pale-eyed boy asked.

"I don't see why I have to answer that," Sasuke retorted. "And if you're challenging me, it's only fair you tell me who you are."

"Neji," the pale-eyed boy replied. "And that's all you get."

"Come on, you guys, we don't have time for this," Sakura said, grabbing Sasuke and Naruto by their hands and pulling them away as she walked. "We've got to turn in our applications!"

* * *

Thus, they went to turn in their applications, but they would be interrupted by a boy wearing a skintight green suit and his identifier headband around his waist. "You with the attitude," he called out. "I want to challenge you."

"What for?" Sasuke asked.

"My name is Rock Lee, and I have heard of you, Sasuke Uchiha," the boy explained. "It is said you are the best rookie of your graduating class. While that may be true, I am still the stronger, faster, and better trained between us, and I will prove it to you here." He jumped off the balcony and landed in front of Team 7, which was when they got a good look at his face.

To be more accurate, it was his eyebrows that caught their attention. They were, to put it in one word, _humongous._

"And I have another reason," he said, looking at Sakura. "You, fair Sakura, have captured my heart. I pledge to you my undying love and devotion!"

Sakura balked at that. "I'm not going out with you! Those eyebrows scare me! And your hair is totally weird! _You're_ totally weird!"

Naruto shook his head slowly. "You want a go at someone? Start with me."

_Naruto, are you mad?_ Mikoto asked. _You don't know what he's capable of, and you're going to take him on, anyway?_

_Yeah,_ Naruto retorted. _Got a problem?_

_Yes,_ Mikoto replied. _But if you insist on making a fool out of yourself in some moronic ploy to prove how 'badass' you think you've become, get it over with and out of your system._

With that grudgingly given permission from Mikoto Nakadai, Naruto blitzed Lee, his index and middle fingers pressed together and thrust outward at the green-clad boy. To his surprise, Lee managed to swat Naruto's fingers aside, but Naruto merely whirled into a roundhouse kick that Lee also blocked. Not being one to give up, Naruto pushed off his other foot and turned around to kick Lee with that foot, only for Lee to jump away.

Naruto twisted in midair and landed in a crouch, baring his teeth almost savagely. "You're good."

"Thank you," Lee replied. "You, too, are more skilled than I expected you to be."

"And what the hell is that supposed to mean?" Naruto asked indignantly.

"That I only knew you by your reputation as the worst student in this year's graduating class," Lee answered simply. "But I see that reputation has been sorely unearned . . . or that you did just as I did and compensated for what others called 'lack of talent' with hard work."

Naruto straightened up and stared into Lee's eyes. "Then this is going to be fun."

Just then, Lee dashed at Naruto, or rather – _past Naruto and right at Sasuke!_

"What the hell?!" Naruto yelled indignantly.

Sasuke smirked. "I've been waiting for a chance to use this." His eyes flared red with two tomoe surrounding each pupil.

_The Sharingan!_ Sakura thought. _Just like Kakashi-sensei! Naruto might have improved, but Sasuke-kun is still the best! He'll take this weirdo down, no problem!_

That was when Sasuke got a very nasty surprise. Despite being on his guard and having the Sharingan on, Lee still slipped past his defenses to deliver a vicious kick that brought him low. "What the –? How did he do that?"

Not wasting time, Sasuke flipped onto his feet and attacked Lee, but Lee was either dodging or blocking everything Sasuke threw at him with an agility that was almost frightening. "How are you doing this? What genjutsu are you using?"

"No genjutsu," Lee replied. "This is taijutsu. Pure martial artistry. Your Sharingan may give you an advantage against any other opponent, but there is one thing it cannot compensate for." He accented this by seeming to vanish, only to have actually dashed beneath Sasuke's guard and kicked him into the air. "Your own physical inability to keep up."

Just then, Lee materialized behind Sasuke as Sasuke floated helplessly in midair. "Dancing Leaf Shadow . . ." Sasuke uttered in realization of the technique Lee was about to use.

"Yes," Lee confirmed, as the tape around his arms began to unravel and wrap around Sasuke. Of course, Lee got a surprise of his own when that happened.

_I will. _NOT. **LOSE!!** Sasuke thought, and the black rage that welled up from deep within his soul seemed to manifest as an aura of black chakra. Sasuke twisted around to face Lee, and thrust his fist out while shouting, "_Ringi: Goyu Koha!"_ The black chakra took on golden tinges as it formed into the shape of an astral lion and mauled Lee. As Lee and Sasuke fell, Sasuke charged through the chakra lion and punched Lee to the ground.

The black chakra faded out, leaving Sasuke gasping for breath and Sakura, Naruto, and a man almost identical to Lee (except for a jonin vest) staring at him and what he'd done in astonishment. "Where did _that _come from?" Sakura asked.

"That's what I'd like to know," the "older Lee doppelganger" added. "I knew the Uchiha were a clan of fearsome shinobi, but this was not something I ever recall seeing in their arsenal." He stalked over to the downed Lee and picked him up. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, Guy-sensei . . . I am sorry I disobeyed you!" Lee exclaimed.

"Yes, you did disobey me," Guy answered. "I saw you before Sasuke used that jutsu on you. You were about to use a kinjutsu on him, when I specifically instructed you only to use it when you had no choice!"

"I am sorry, Guy-sensei!" Lee exclaimed.

"It is all right, Lee!" Guy exclaimed. "I am more concerned for your safety! Oh, you're growing up so fast! Too old to be considered a boy, not yet old enough or wise enough to be a man! Oh, it's beautiful . . . you're in the springtime of your youth!"

"Guy-sensei!"

"Lee!"

"Guy-sensei!"

For some completely inexplicable and unjustifiable reason, Lee and Guy's hug made Team 7 vividly imagine a sunset on the horizon of crashing waves on a beach, even if they knew it wasn't really there. "What . . . the . . . hell?" Naruto uttered.

_Humans are strange,_ TopGaler commented.

_I know,_ Mikoto agreed. _But these two . . . they're about as bad as Abared._

_Ryoga?_ Naruto asked.

_Hmm,_ Mikoto responded. _What I'm more concerned with is this power your friend seems to have gained._

"Now run into the sunset," Guy declared to Lee. "Run . . . run and suffer! But don't mess up your hair. And if you cannot manage one lap, do five hundred!"

"Yes, Guy-sensei!" Lee shouted.

"Wait a second!" Sakura interrupted. "It's almost three o'clock! We still have to turn in our applications!"

"Good point," Guy conceded. He turned to her and the other two members of Team 7. "Say, you wouldn't be Kakashi's team, would you? We happen to be eternal rivals."

"Eternal rivals," Sasuke repeated numbly. "Sure."

"50 wins and 49 losses is the record as it stands now," Guy added. "That's one better than his."

_Better . . . than Kakashi?_ Sasuke thought in disbelief.

Just then, Guy appeared behind Team 7. "Anyway, I'm going to help Lee get to where he needs to be on time. Do you want to accompany him? It's only fair after the beating you gave him."

Sasuke looked at Guy, stunned out of his mind at Guy's supposition that he was better than Kakashi and also at the power that had emerged from inside him. _That lion . . . where did it come from? Did it come from . . . me?_

* * *

End Notes: As much as I'd like to prolong this chapter, I think now's a pretty good point to end it on. Yes, as some of you who read the last chapter suspected, Sasuke is indeed the Black Lion Rio reborn! Of course, just because Sasuke has the power of the Confrontation Beast Lion-Fist doesn't mean he's going to have a totally easy time of things in the Chunin Exams. Orochimaru still looms . . . and so does the mysterious threat from the Super Sentai multiverse that is causing these Sentai warriors to be reborn in the Naruto world. If you want to see what happens next, hang in there for the next chapter. Let's Go-on!


	4. Awakening of the Black Lion

"Naruto vs. Super Sentai"

Chapter 4: "Awakening of the Black Lion"

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, Shonen Jump, and Viz. Super Sentai in its multifarious incarnations belongs to Toei and TV Asahi. I make no money whatsoever from this story, nor do I receive other material compensation. I'm just doing this for fun.

Author's note: Sorry to have delayed so long with this story; as you can probably tell, there were other stories on my mind as well. Now that I've gotten them out of the way for the time being, I'm going to return to this one. Naruto Uzumaki and Sasuke Uchiha have turned out to be the reincarnations of two of the Sentai-verse's strongest villains-turned-heroes. How they will use the power they've come into is something you will find out for yourselves in reading this story. Now, let's go on!

* * *

Team 7 walked into the hall where the prospective chunin taking the exam had gathered. When they entered, Naruto grinned at seeing his opponents-to-be. "What the hell are you smiling about, punk?" a genin from Rain Village asked him.

"I'm grinning because I'm thinking about kicking your ass," Naruto answered. His grin widened when he saw that the eyes of most of the foreign genin were on him. "In fact, I'm thinking about kicking _all_ of your asses."

"Who the hell do you think you are?" a genin from the Grass Village asked.

"Naruto Uzumaki, at your service," Naruto replied, bowing mockingly.

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled. "You're putting a huge target on all our backs!"

"Don't worry, Sakura-chan," Naruto answered coolly. "I'll protect you."

Just then, Team 10 – Ino Yamanaka, Shikamaru Nara, and Choji Akimichi – came over to Team 7. "Hey, Sasuke-kun," Ino purred, taking the opportunity to drape herself over him, much to Sasuke's irritation and Sakura's fury. "How's it going?"

"Could you get off me?" Sasuke asked lowly.

"I'd like to get off, all right . . ." Ino replied.

"Ino-pig!" Sakura exploded. "Get off my Sasuke-kun!"

Naruto looked at Sasuke sympathetically, as did Shikamaru and Choji. "You poor bastard," was the unspoken phrase on all their minds.

"Sasuke-kun likes _me_ better!" Ino shot back at Sakura.

"Actually, he'd probably just like you both to get off him and have respect for his personal space," Naruto remarked idly.

Ino and Sakura both turned on Naruto. "Stay out of this!"

"I can't believe I'm saying this, but the loser's right," Sasuke said. "I want you both to get off me and give me some space. Now."

Both Ino and Sakura got off Sasuke as though they'd touched a hot stove. Naruto smirked quietly, and then turned out to face all the genin in the room. "All of you are on notice. I don't give a damn who you are or who you think you are. I don't need to know any of that. You only need to know who I am. I am the one who will become the ultimate ninja storm . . . Naruto Uzumaki. You are all welcome to begin pissing yourselves in fear."

This merely got a lot of people pissed off, and there was a small clamor from the louder ones. Something along the lines of a very vulgar dismissal of Naruto's abilities was shouted at him. Naruto's answer was to smile and say, "You, too, bitch."

"Who you calling a bitch!?" a heavily bandaged genin with a strange weapon on his arm shouted.

"Depends," Naruto answered. "_Are_ you a bitch?"

The genin swung his weapon-bearing arm at Naruto, who twisted under his arm and poked him in the chest with his index and middle fingers. Both Naruto and the genin collapsed in utter pain, Naruto from suddenly losing his equilibrium and the genin from feeling like he'd been punctured with a needle.

"That might not have been such a good idea," a bespectacled young man with long gray hair in a ponytail said to Naruto. "The Sound Village is a young village, but a very proud one. They don't like to be dismissed out of hand by ninja from more established villages."

"What was that move?" Naruto asked.

_A sonic attack, you nimrod,_ Mikoto answered archly. _That weapon on his arm manipulates the sonic vibrations that your inner ear receives, disrupting your balance. This is why I keep warning you about going after people whose abilities you don't even know or bother to learn about._

_Yeah, yeah, yeah, I screwed up, I get it,_ Naruto grumbled.

_No, you think you get it, which is not the same as getting it,_ Mikoto answered. _Get it?_

"What a drag," Shikamaru groused.

"You're still alive," Sasuke grunted. "Not that it counts for much, loser."

"You, too, bastard," Naruto retorted weakly.

"Just like you, isn't it, Naruto?" a voice remarked. Naruto sat up, seeing Kiba Inuzuka staring at him with amusement. "Acting like you're a lot cooler than you really are."

"Shove it, Kiba," Naruto snapped.

"Just saying what we were all thinking," Kiba answered.

Sasuke looked at the ponytailed older boy who'd come to Naruto. "What are those cards you've got?"

"They're how I gather information about the genin competing in the Chunin Exams," the boy replied. "This is my seventh try, and I made these cards in the hopes of having an advantage this time. I have cards on pretty much everyone in the Five Great Shinobi Nations. Their abilities, their allegiances, the number and ranks of the missions they've taken . . ."

"Show me Rock Lee," Sasuke demanded.

The boy obliged, showing him Rock Lee's information. "He has no ninjutsu or genjutsu in his arsenal, relying solely on taijutsu. He's one of the best of his generation in that area."

"And what about Gaara of the Sand?" Sasuke asked.

The boy showed Sasuke that information as well. "The interesting thing about him isn't so much the rank of his missions . . . but that he's come back from every single one of them without so much as a scratch."

"How's that possible?" Naruto asked, having forced himself onto his feet.

"Some kind of defensive ninjutsu, I suppose," the older boy answered. "Given his village's elemental specialty, it could be wind. Or something else entirely."

At that moment, a tall, muscular, and imposing man in a black trench coat and dark blue bandana stepped in. "All right, you little pukes, playtime's over! I see any fighting before the Chunin Exams have begun, and I'm gonna disqualify the troublemakers right there!"

Everyone paid very close attention to the man, whose rugged face bore some very nasty-looking diagonal scars, as though he'd taken a sword to the face. He smirked coldly at the genin, unnerving most of them.

"Now, all of you little pukes come with me for the first phase of the Chunin Exams!" the man shouted.

The genin, no matter what their village allegiance was, obeyed out of sheer paralyzing terror at the man's presence. As they followed him, Naruto wondered just who this guy was and if maybe he could teach him a thing or two about putting the fear of Kami into his enemies. He seemed very good at it from what he could tell.

* * *

When they reached the classroom where the first part of the exam would be taking place, the man introduced himself as Ibiki Morino. _Where have I heard that name before?_ Naruto wondered.

_Head of the ANBU Interrogation and Torture Division,_ Mikoto filled in. _Remember? Part of your fact-finding mission since you've been back here was learning as much as you could about the ninja here in this village._

_Oh, yeah,_ Naruto thought.

_He's an expert in interrogation, a master of psychological torture,_ Mikoto stated. _He doesn't destroy you, he makes you destroy yourself._

_Wow,_ Naruto thought. _Cool._

"I'm going to be the proctor for this part of the Chunin Exams," Ibiki explained. "Here's the way it works. You answer ten questions about the Shinobi Way, and start out with ten points. You'll lose one point for every question you get wrong, and two points for being caught cheating. Those who get to zero fail the exams and will have to try again next time along with the rest of their team. Am I clear?"

The genin merely stared ahead in raw terror. After the exam papers had been passed out, the test began. Naruto looked at the questions with trepidation. "How am I supposed to answer these?"

_You answer them,_ Mikoto replied. _I'll help._

_Isn't that cheating?_ Naruto asked.

_Naruto, they're not gonna look inside your head and find me feeding you answers,_ Mikoto replied scornfully. _They'd need someone from the Yamanaka clan for that, and the only one I see here is Ino, and she doesn't think very much of you, anyway, so why would she peek inside your head?_

_Gee, thanks,_ Naruto remarked sarcastically.

Just then, Naruto was nudged by a familiar dark-haired, pale-eyed girl in a heavy jacket. "Hinata?" he asked.

"Naruto-kun . . ." Hinata murmured. "If you're worried . . . you don't have to be . . . I'll . . . I'll give you the . . . answers . . ."

"Don't worry, Hinata," Naruto whispered. "I don't want you disqualified on my account. I'll be ok. But . . ." He smiled at her. "Thanks for caring."

As it turned out, a lot of genin had their own ways of cheating. Sasuke used his Sharingan to copy another genin's handwriting and thus his answers. Ino used her mind-reading technique to glean the answers from Sakura's brain and pass them along to her teammates. Kiba and Shino used Akamaru and his kikai bugs, respectively, to read the other genin's tests and acquire the right answers. Tenten used carefully hidden mirrors to read the answers from the other genin and pass them on to her own teammates.

Of the genin, Sakura was the only one with no need to cheat, since she knew the answers so well. Naruto was almost the same, but he had Mikoto's ghost in his head helping him understand things better. As the test went on, though, a lot of genin ended up walking out of the classroom, much to the worry of those who remained for the moment.

Then something occurred to Naruto. "Where the hell is the tenth question?!"

"Naruto!" Sakura shouted.

"I'm serious," Naruto went on. "There are supposed to be ten questions, but there were only nine on the actual papers! What kind of scam is this?!"

"You're a perceptive one," Ibiki remarked. "The tenth question isn't on the paper because it's special."

"How special?" Naruto asked skeptically.

"Let's see, special enough to stick you and your teammates as genin for the rest of your ninja careers if you answer wrong," Ibiki replied. "Of course, if you choose not to answer at all, you automatically fail and you and your team have to wait till next time to try again. What's it going to be?"

The sheer terror at the thought of being stuck as a genin forever sent many genin packing. The ones who were still there had no idea what to do with themselves, whether to answer or flee like many of their comrades had done. Finally, a disgusted Naruto stood up.

"I get what you're trying to do," he spat. "This is all about terrorizing us with our own fears. Well, screw that and screw you! I'm not backing down, and even if you stick me as a genin for the rest of my ninja career, I'll still rise to the top! Because I'm Naruto Uzumaki, and that's my way of the ninja!"

Ibiki chuckled in amusement. "Are the rest of you prepared to follow this guy's example?"

"Well, we're screwed either way, but with Naruto's way we still have some dignity," Shikamaru grumbled. "And I'm not gonna hear my mom complaining about how I ran out like a coward. That's too much of a drag."

The others were silent, but that silence spoke more than words. Ibiki smiled at them, an expression that looked savage on him. "You pass. All you little pukes pass."

"Huh?" Kiba was confused, as were a lot of other people. "What?"

"You pass," Ibiki repeated. "You see, that tenth question was really a test of your courage. When you're chunin, you don't get the benefit of having the answers handed to you on a silver platter. Things will happen out on a mission that you didn't know about, that you didn't anticipate, and you won't have the option of cutting and running. _Especially with the lives of your comrades on the line,_ because being a chunin means that those lives are in your hands. Do you get it?"

At that moment, the window shattered and a figure in a khaki trench coat did a barrel roll into the room, accompanied by a banner that said "ANKO MITARASHI IS HERE!" Ibiki smiled slightly, but the genin were just wondering what the hell was going on.

The trench coat-wearing figure stood up, revealing that it was a young woman with purple hair worn in a spiked-up ponytail and wearing an outfit consisting almost entirely of fishnets. "I see way too many little punks here," she remarked. "You're going soft, Ibiki."

"Maybe this batch is just that good," Ibiki retorted with a smile.

"All you little bastards come with me!" Anko Mitarashi shouted. "Now!"

* * *

The remaining genin obeyed, and followed Anko outside to a gated forest. "This . . . you little punks . . . is the Forest of Death. This is where the second part of the Chunin Exams will take place. You'll be expected to make it across the Forest of Death to the tower on the other side in five days, and you'll do it with these scrolls." She held up a blue scroll and a beige scroll. "One is the Scroll of Heaven, and the other is the Scroll of Earth. Each team will be given one or the other, and you'll need both to get in."

"How are we supposed to get both?" a genin asked.

"You fight the other teams, and the winners get the losers' scroll," Anko replied. "This part of the exam is going to test your survival skills and combat abilities. If you have what it takes, you'll make it. If you don't . . . well, they don't call it the Forest of Death for nothing."

"Forest of Death," Naruto commented. "I'm not impressed."

Just then, Anko threw a kunai at Naruto's face, only for Naruto to catch it. In that moment, Anko had used a Body Flicker to appear behind him and take back the kunai, nicking his cheek with it. "Tough guy, huh?" she remarked. "Think you can handle this?" She licked the blood off his cheek. "Heh, it's the tough guys like you that leave their blood all over this forest."

Mikoto took Naruto's hesitation while in Anko's grip as a sign to take over. He smirked. "This is probably the sexiest intimidation attempt I've ever received."

Anko grinned back. "Punk."

"I know I am, but what does that make you?" Mikoto asked smoothly.

"You're a surprising bastard," Anko remarked. "I guess your reputation's deserved." She let go of him. "But we have an exam to start. You survive, look me up."

"I will . . ." Mikoto promised lowly, and then let control slide back to Naruto.

_What the hell was that?!_ Naruto asked.

_Saving you,_ Mikoto replied.

_You just got me a date with a crazy woman!_ Naruto protested.

_No, not quite,_ Mikoto amended. _I merely gave her a more favorable impression of you. It wouldn't have done well for you to faint out of sheer terror._

_I wasn't scared!_ Naruto yelled.

_Humans,_ TopGaler grumbled. _I don't even know why I bother with you._

_Because we give you opportunities to seek excitement,_ Mikoto answered.

_Point, human,_ TopGaler muttered.

"Now where were we?" Anko asked. She pointed to a nearby booth. "Go there to sign the papers that waive all responsibility on our part for whatever unfortunate injuries or deaths befall you this time. And one more thing . . . actually try not to die!"

* * *

With the waivers signed, the teams received their scrolls and wandered into the Forest of Death. As soon as they could find a private spot to talk, Team 7 did so. "What's up, Sasuke?" Sakura asked.

"It's possible someone will use a transformation to try to get close to one of us," Sasuke replied. "Therefore, we need a password, a code that only we know."

"I've got one," Naruto said. "Ramen is the food of the gods."

"What kind of stupid password is that?" Sakura asked scornfully.

"The kind that works," Naruto replied. "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to pee." He went to the nearest tree and began undoing his pants.

"Not in front of me you don't!" Sakura yelled, about to punch Naruto upside the head when Naruto blocked her fist backhandedly and undid his pants with his free hand.

"Better I do it here than go off on my own and get snatched," Naruto replied, letting loose. He sighed with relief. "Much better."

"You're disgusting!" Sakura yelled, only to be cut off by an agonized scream in the distance. "What was that?!"

"Somebody getting really unlucky," Naruto answered. "Don't worry, Sakura. I won't let anyone get you. Same goes for you, Sasuke." He redid his pants and turned to face his teammates. At that moment, a strong gust of wind blew through, scattering the three.

Sasuke was the first to recover, having landed under a bush. Sakura was quickly approaching him. Always one to be on his guard, Sasuke drew his kunai. "The password. Now."

"Ramen is the food of the gods!" Sakura exclaimed.

Sasuke analyzed her with his Sharingan to make sure it wasn't someone using a transformation to trick him. To his gratification, every invisible detail that distinguished each individual from the next gave her away as being Sakura. "Good."

"Where's Naruto?" Sakura asked.

Just then, Naruto came running down their way. "Hey, what's going on?"

"The password," Sasuke demanded. "And you're the one who came up with it, so . . ."

"Ramen is the food of the gods!" Naruto exclaimed.

"Good . . . but you overacted your part!" Sasuke shouted as he threw a kunai at the false Naruto, who dodged with lightning reflexes that even the real Naruto hadn't grown into yet.

"How could you tell?" the fake Naruto asked.

"The real Naruto loves ramen to death," Sasuke replied. "You can hear it in his voice whenever he talks about it. _You,_ on the other hand, sounded more like somebody _trying_ to be enthusiastic rather than someone who really felt it."

"Clever," the fake Naruto murmured, "his" voice sounding a lot more feminine . . . and a lot more snakelike . . . than normal. "He" dispelled the transformation to reveal a woman in a long beige tunic over a skintight black suit with a purple rope belt tied around her waist. Her headband identified her as a shinobi of the Grass Village. "I bet you want this, don't you?" She held up her Earth scroll. "It'd go really well with your Heaven scroll, don't you think? Well, one of us is going to have them both and the other . . ."

The Grass kunoichi opened her mouth obscenely wide and wrapped her tongue around the Earth scroll, pushing it down her throat, much to the horror of Sasuke and Sakura. When the two genin looked into her glare, they were suddenly overwhelmed with visions of their own very brutal, painful deaths. _What kind of illusion is this?!_ Sasuke wondered. _No . . . this isn't an illusion. This is . . . her very bloodlust! What kind of horror is she?!_

_Is this all you can do, Sasuke Uchiha?_ Sasuke heard a voice asking him in his thoughts. _Are you going to give in to these visions of death and let them happen to you and your comrade? Are you? Or are you going to fight? Are you going to consume your fear and excrete it as strength?! Are you?!_

_Who are you?_ Sasuke asked.

_You,_ the voice answered. _I'm you. And now, it appears I will have to step in, because I certainly am not going back to the embrace of Hades!_

* * *

Meanwhile, Naruto had a dilemma of his own, having been swallowed whole by a giant snake that had come out of nowhere. Now, he was making a slow but inexorable journey down the snake's esophagus – or whatever it had that was the equivalent of such – and into its stomach.

_This is not going to be how it ends!_ Naruto thought. _Iruka-sensei . . . old man Hokage . . . Konohamaru . . . Kakashi-sensei . . . Sakura . . . and even Sasuke . . . they all need me to make it through this! And I will! I'm not going to end this as snake droppings!_

"BAKURYU CHANGE."

With a burst of Dino Guts, Naruto transformed into Abare Mode Abarekiller and cut his way out of the snake's belly. He landed back in the forest grounds covered in snake guts, but that was better than he could say for the snake that had tried to eat him. "Don't. Mess. With. The next Hokage."

With that postmortem boast made, Abarekiller dashed away from the snake's remains to find his comrades.

* * *

Meanwhile, the Grass kunoichi noted with amusement that Sasuke and Sakura were no longer there. _Such speed . . . if nothing else, he's good at running away. But he won't get away._

When Sakura regained her senses, she saw Sasuke had activated his Sharingan. That wasn't the thing that set her off about him, though; the way he stood, the way he moved . . . it wasn't quite the Sasuke she knew. "Sasuke?"

"Don't worry," "Sasuke" replied, his crimson eyes gazing at her with steely determination and . . . affection? "I won't let that demon harm you . . . Sakura."

"Sasuke" turned around and jumped off the tree he and Sakura had been hiding in, whispering the words, "_Ringi: Rinki Gaiso._"

Immediately, a black-and-gold aura formed around him in the shape of a lion, merging with him to form black armor around his body that made him resemble a lion. He landed on the ground at the moment the black armor had finished assembling on his body.

"Come, whatever you are."

"Interesting," the Grass kunoichi purred. "I had no idea this little trick was in the Uchiha clan arsenal."

"It's more than a trick," "Sasuke" answered coolly. "As you'll see soon enough."

He charged the Grass kunoichi, delivering a vicious strike to her midsection and sending her flying. The Grass kunoichi quickly recovered, contorting in midair to regain some control and landing on the ground in a crouch. She charged at "Sasuke" this time, and "Sasuke" rushed her, the two combatants meeting midway with vicious punches and kicks thrown at high speed.

_His movements . . . they're quick . . . and precise, not to mention forceful,_ the Grass kunoichi thought to herself. _Kakashi must have trained him well._

Just then, the Grass kunoichi flipped back from "Sasuke" and pulled up her sleeve to reveal a summon tattoo, which she stained with her own blood to activate it. Immediately, another giant snake emerged, with her standing atop it. The snake slithered with great speed toward "Sasuke," only to be cut off by a barrage of light arrows striking both it and its rider.

Both the Grass kunoichi and "Sasuke" turned to face who'd fired the light arrows and found Abarekiller standing in a tree above them, slouching against the trunk. "Dezumozorya," Abarekiller greeted. "I had no idea you'd follow me into this world. But then, that is the price of the power you once gave me, isn't it?"

The Grass kunoichi hissed. "Dr. Mikoto Nakadai . . . it has been too long, hasn't it?"

"Not long enough," Abarekiller answered, jumping off the tree and landing with a kick to the Grass kunoichi's face. He flipped off the snake and landed beside "Sasuke." "I can tell you're not Sasuke. Who are you?"

"Kurojishi Rio," the black-armored figure beside him answered.

"Very well, 'Kurojishi,' let's show this hellspawn the price of crossing us," Abarekiller suggested.

"That sounds like a good idea," Rio agreed.

The Grass kunoichi rose and attacked both armored warriors, who both fought back against her. Abarekiller slashed her with his Wing Pentact, while Rio kicked her in the midsection. As she flew back, Abarekiller fired another barrage of light arrows with his blade, pinning her to a tree this time.

"Let's finish this," Rio snarled, forming a blazing aura of black-and-gold energy that gathered in his fists. "_Ringi: Goyu Shoda!_" He charged the Grass kunoichi with a spectral lion behind him and his armored fist went right through her midsection for a Confrontation Ki-powered impalement. He pulled his fist out of the Grass kunoichi and turned to walk away, only to receive an unpleasant surprise.

"It's not a good idea to turn your back on an opponent," the Grass kunoichi hissed, her voice still snakelike but growing more masculine. As she rose from her vulnerable position, Rio and Abarekiller turned and saw that her wound was closing . . . and a snake was coming out of her mouth. The Grass kunoichi pulled a sword hilt first from the snake's mouth, revealing that it was a jian. "Since one of you seems so fond of swords, it's only fair that I bring out mine."

"Test of kenjutsu, hmm?" Abarekiller remarked. "I'll bite." He rushed the Grass kunoichi, only to find his sword blocked by hers. He attempted to knee her in the stomach, but she blocked it and knocked his sword aside, then slashed at him with hers. Abarekiller managed to block by using the plate of his Dino Minder and then he punched her in the face.

"So who did you reincarnate as, Nakadai?" the Grass kunoichi asked.

"None of your business," Abarekiller retorted.

"Trying to protect your identity?" the Grass kunoichi mocked. "Well, I know who you are, and I've come up with the perfect counter for someone like you."

"And that would be what?"

The Grass kunoichi raised five fingers burning with eldritch fire. "This. Five-Element Seal!" She slammed her fingertips into Abarekiller's stomach, piercing the armor to bind the Nine-Tailed Fox's seal. "Yes, I knew it all along . . . Naruto Uzumaki, the last legacy of the Fourth Hokage. I knew who you were the moment I saw Mikoto's changer on your wrist. Now . . . _depart._"

She threw Mikoto/Naruto aside as the Zero suit dissolved around their shared body and (t)he(y) made a hard impact against a nearby tree, falling unconscious. The Grass kunoichi turned her attentions to Kurojishi Rio. "Whoever you are . . . you're interesting. And if Sasuke Uchiha is your present form, that makes you even more interesting."

"What do you want with him?" Rio interrogated, shifting into a fighting stance.

"You'll find out soon enough," the Grass kunoichi replied ominously.

"I'll find out now!" Rio retorted, striking the Grass kunoichi with a vicious cross. He followed it with a brutal jab with his knee to her midsection and while she was flying into a tree, he charged to finish her off. To his shock, she captured his wrist and threw him back against a tree. Her body began moving like a snake, slithering after him.

_You idiot!_ Sasuke's voice roared in his head. _Use my Sharingan!_

_Oh, so you do want in on this?_ Rio asked almost mockingly.

_If I can't fight her, how am I supposed to fight the bastard that killed my family?!_ Sasuke roared. _Now shut up and let me fight with you!_

_Much obliged, Sasuke-kun._

Sasuke's Sharingan flared to life behind Rio's visor and they could see the Grass kunoichi's movements with perfect clarity. To them, it was almost like she was moving in slow motion, and when she attacked, they blocked with ease and retaliated with equal speed and force. "_Ringi: Ensatsu Goha!_" He unleashed a veritable storm of black fire on the Grass kunoichi, and even her speed couldn't allow her to dodge it entirely.

_What . . . what was that?_ Sasuke asked.

_Confrontation Ki, superheated to transform it into flame to burn our enemies off the face of the Earth,_ Rio replied. _Kind of like how you superheat your chakra to make fire-based ninjutsu._

At the mention of the words "Confrontation Ki," Sasuke was assaulted by images from a past he did not remember. He saw a black lion, an adoring woman in green, a group of young people who were called "Gekirangers," an anthropomorphic housecat, demons modeled after a hawk, a jellyfish, and a grizzly bear, and a monstrous ten-headed dragon. The memories of the three demons were tinged with loathing, particularly where the bear demon – _Maku_ – was concerned, but the most pernicious hate was directed at the dragon, who had a human form resembling a golden-haired man in ornate robes.

_What . . . who are all these people?_

_They're the people we knew when you were me,_ Rio explained. _They were our masters, our enemies, our friends . . . our love._

_Love . . ._ Sasuke thought bitterly.

Just then, their reminiscence was interrupted by the Grass kunoichi standing up, her face half-melted to reveal pale skin around a golden eye accented by violet makeup. "You're a lot more impressive than I thought you would be," "she" remarked, her voice becoming more masculine but still snakelike. "Yes, you _are_ worthy."

It was at that moment that Sakura came out to see an unconscious Naruto, and Sasuke/Rio in the Black Lion armor facing the Grass kunoichi. "Sasuke!" she shouted. "Is that you?"

Sasuke turned to look at Sakura, disengaging the armor. "Sakura, get out of here!"

"Oh?" the Grass shinobi mocked. "Is that an attachment I see?"

Sasuke whirled on the Grass shinobi and prepared to finish him-her-it-whatever-the-hell-this-freak-was with another Ringi. Unfortunately, he wasn't quite fast enough to avoid the Grass shinobi suddenly biting his exposed neck with snakelike fangs. When the Grass shinobi withdrew his-her-its fangs from Sasuke, there were two parallel puncture marks in his neck. Beside those puncture marks, a mark resembling three black commas arranged in a triangle took form.

Sasuke collapsed in agony, and Sakura ran to him. "Sasuke!" She turned to the Grass shinobi. "What did you do to him, you monster?!"

"A parting gift," the Grass shinobi replied. "When the time comes, he will seek me out. He will desire my power. And I shall give it to him." With that ominous warning, the Grass shinobi began to melt into the earth.

"Get back here!" Sakura yelled. "Who do you think you are?!"

"I am Orochimaru," the Grass shinobi replied, "the Great Snake. There are ninja loyal to me in this exam, and they will come for Sasuke soon enough. Try to keep him alive for me." He finished melting into the ground as he gave those parting words, leaving Sakura alone with two incapacitated teammates.

"Naruto!" she cried out. "Naruto, wake up! Sasuke's hurt! I need you!"

Somewhere in the back of her mind, a voice scoffed at her for this weakness. _Pathetic. It's no wonder Sasuke never notices you._

Dismissing the voice as something out of her own fevered thoughts, Sakura focused on the task at hand. She carried her teammates into the hollow of a tree large enough to fit three kneeling humans and set them down gently. Sasuke's body was heating up, indicating a fever, and so she draped a wet cloth on his forehead after removing his headband to help him cool down. She also propped up Naruto's head with some folded cloth.

"There . . ." she murmured. _I wish I could do more. I wish I knew what to do. . . ._

* * *

Unbeknownst to her, there was a trio of genin from the Hidden Sound Village on their trail. One of them was the bandaged youth with the arm-mounted sonic weapon that Naruto had confronted. Another was a boy with a tall shock of dull blue hair and wearing a head brace and large beige tunic with the kanji for "death" printed on it. The third was a girl with long dark hair and wearing an olive green vest. All three Sound genin wore black-and-gray camouflage print as part of their outfits.

They were Dosu Kinuta, Zaku Abumi, and Kin Tsuchi, and they had been ordered by Orochimaru to kill Sasuke Uchiha. "We take him at daybreak," Dosu instructed. "Got it?"

"Yeah," Zaku replied, with a sinister smirk. "But, hey, if the other two get in our way . . . I'll take them out, too."

"Of course," Dosu acceded calmly. "Our mission is to get the Uchiha, however we have to."

* * *

End Notes: There you go, Kurojishi Rio has returned! With Sasuke branded with the Cursed Seal of Heaven, will he walk the same path that he was destined to walk? Or will the presence of someone who _has_ walked a similar path and seen where it leads pull him back from that edge? Just what is the connection between the "Wicked Life God" and the "Snake Sannin," and what does it forebode for Naruto Uzumaki? Speaking of Naruto, what about the long-term effects of sharing his body with the spirit of Mikoto Nakadai? For the answers to those questions and others, hang on for the next chapter!

P.S. "Ensatsu Goha," or "Blaze-Murder Strong Wave," is an original Ringi created from fusing Confrontation Ki with fire-nature chakra, combining Rio's skills with Sasuke's skills.


	5. Rise Again, Confrontation Beast Fist

"Naruto vs. Super Sentai"

Chapter 5: "Rise Again, Confrontation Beast-Fist"

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, Shonen Jump, and Viz. Super Sentai belongs to Toei and TV Asahi. I make no profit, monetary or otherwise, from this story and am only writing this for my personal satisfaction.

Author's note: Things are getting pretty rough. Orochimaru has branded Sasuke with the Cursed Seal of Heaven, put Naruto out of commission with a Five-Element Seal, and sent a team of loyal genin to kill Sasuke, all while Sakura is left alone to defend her teammates. Fortunately, Sakura might be getting a little help to deal with those guys, and not necessarily from Lee or Team 10. Wanna know what I'm talking about? Keep reading. Let's go on!

_

* * *

_

What the hell happened?

Naruto asked.

_We were knocked out by that monster's seal!_ Mikoto replied. _I can feel Dezumozorya's power behind that seal, trapping our Dino Guts and your chakra._

_Who the hell is Dezumozorya?_ Naruto asked.

_The monster who left half of his essence inside you when you were me,_ Mikoto answered. _It was his power . . . that turned me into a pawn in his twisted game. But I was a willing participant, even if I didn't know what he really wanted. I served my own ambition, even if it caused others to suffer, and it turned out that I was serving him._

_How do we wake up?_ Naruto asked. _Where are we?_

_Where are we?_ Mikoto echoed. _Inside our mind._

Just then, the two incarnations heard a loud, hungry roar. _What was that?!_ Naruto asked.

_The Nine-Tailed Fox, the monster that was sealed inside us this time, only he's grown stronger thanks to Dezumozorya's power,_ Mikoto replied. _If we don't bind him now while we still have a chance, he'll use this body to recreate himself and begin his carnage anew._

_**You humans think you can trap me?!**_ the Nine-Tailed Fox roared. _**I'll have both your souls for my feast!**_

_Shove off,_ Mikoto snarled, and raised his Dino Minder to his lips. _Bakuryu Change._ Gold-green light swirled around him, forming the familiar white-and-black armor of Abarekiller.

_**Just try it!**_ the Nine-Tailed Fox challenged.

_Gladly,_ Abarekiller retorted, and dashed into the cage restraining the Nine-Tailed Fox.

_**Fool!**_ the Fox roared and reached to swallow Abarekiller whole. Unfortunately for him, Abarekiller dodged and slashed his side with the Wing Pentact. _**You hurt me?! You think you can hurt me?! I'LL SHRED YOU TO BITS!**_

_Yes, I hurt you,_ Abarekiller retorted. _And I'll hurt you some more._

The Nine-Tailed Fox let out a furious roar and slashed Abarekiller with his claws, knocking him to the ground. Abarekiller rolled out of an attempted stomp by the Fox and shifted to Abare Mode. He charged the blades extending from his hands and performed an energized slash attack that wounded the Fox. Pressing his advantage, the white-armored warrior charged the demon and impaled him on his blades.

That, unfortunately, turned out to have simply enraged the Demon Fox, and Abarekiller found out just what a bad idea it was to enrage a demon when said demon brutally slammed him against the cage. The whole time this was happening, Naruto was watching it happen in raw terror.

_Is that . . . what's been locked inside me all this time . . . ?_ Naruto asked himself, horrified.

_Help him!_ a voice shouted. _Help him!_

_How?_ Naruto asked. _That Fox . . . it's so strong . . ._

_You're human,_ the voice insisted. _Your courage gives you even more strength than a monster like that could ever possess! Don't let Mikoto down!_

At that moment, four astral figures materialized, becoming more solid. They were four young people, all dressed in colored jackets emblazoned with mechanical dinosaurs. The one in the lead was wearing red with a tyrannosaurus and had spiky hair. The young man next to him had long hair and wore blue with a triceratops. The young man next to him wore black with a brachiosaurus and had somewhat neater hair than the one in red. The one girl with them had short hair and wore yellow with a pterodactyl and a skirt.

_Who are you?_ Naruto asked.

_Ryoga,_ the red-jacketed one answered.

_Yukito,_ the blue-jacketed one replied.

_Ranru,_ the yellow-jacketed girl responded.

_Asuka,_ the black-jacketed young man replied.

_We're the Abarangers,_ Ryoga stated. _Mikoto's friends._

_And you're his friend, too, so act like it and get in there and help him!_ Ranru insisted.

_We'll back you up!_ Asuka added.

_I swore I'd never back down again . . ._ Naruto said to himself, remembering what had happened the last time he'd choked up in an actual combat situation. _And I'll keep my word._ He lifted his head, whirling to face the cage and thrusting his Dino Minder out at it. The other Abarangers followed his motion.

_BAKURYU CHANGE!_

All five transformed, right into Abare Mode, and lunged into the cage to save Mikoto, who had been forced out of his armor by the Fox's relentless attacks. Naruto, as Abarekiller, slashed the Nine-Tailed Fox repeatedly with the blades extending from his hands. Asuka, as Abareblack, drew his Dino Thruster and stabbed it into the ground after twisting the hilt for the Storm Inferno attack, which blasted back the Nine-Tailed Fox.

The core three Abarangers – Red, Blue, and Yellow – combined their weapons into the Dino Bomber and fired it at the Fox, driving him back even more. The Fox roared in anger and charged the three Abarangers.

_No, you don't!_ Asuka yelled, moving his Dino Thruster in such a way that it created an energy circle. _Circle Moon!_ He launched the circle at the Fox, and it became a giant orb that trapped him, causing it to roar impotently as the orb's energy lashed at him.

Naruto powered down his suit and an energy needle extended from his index and middle fingers. He charged the Nine-Tailed Fox and struck him in his underbelly with the needle, eliciting an agonized roar from the Fox. He then proceeded to prove to the Fox just how finished he was by knocking him to the back of his cage with a roundhouse kick.

As they walked out of the cage, Mikoto chuckled. _You're not bad, Naruto. Not bad at all._

_Had to do it,_ Naruto replied. _He was gonna kill you._ He looked at the other Abarangers, then back at Mikoto. _Where did they come from?_

_A failsafe of sorts,_ Mikoto answered. _To help me remember why I fight._

_So they're just figments of our imagination?_ Naruto asked.

_In a sense,_ Mikoto admitted. _But in a battle of the mind, your will and imagination are the strongest weapons you can have._

_All right,_ Naruto conceded. _Now, can we wake up?_

_I'll get to work on that,_ Mikoto answered.

* * *

In the real world, Sakura had been busily setting up traps for anyone who'd come after her team. Unfortunately, the Sound genin that had come to kill Sasuke had seen through those traps and beaten the living crap out of her with almost ridiculous ease. The girl, Kin, now had Sakura by her long pink hair, and was taking no short time in mocking her.

"Such pretty hair," Kin remarked. "Even prettier than mine. Then again, I spent more time working on my ninjutsu than I did on my hair. If you'd done the same, maybe you wouldn't be in this predicament."

Sakura looked out at the boy who would have been her protector, Lee, who was now lying half-conscious on the ground after being hit by Dosu's sonic attack. He'd put up a good fight at first, but it was Dosu's sonic attack that took him out of that fight.

_She's right, you know,_ a silky voice in Sakura's mind remarked. _You _are _weak. More concerned with winning the affection of a boy who'll never notice you because you don't have what it takes to make him notice you._

_Who are you?_ Sakura asked. _Why are you saying these things to me?_

_Because I am you, and I want to help you,_ the voice replied. _Do you think a weakling such as you are now will ever gain Sasuke Uchiha's notice? He is a lot like my Rio-sama, and men like Rio-sama want women who have the strength to match them, not fawning little girls. That is what you are. You've spent all this time in worship of an idol you never really understood or took the time to know, forsaking actual training as a warrior in hopes of making yourself pretty enough to be noticed by him. If you had the strength of body and of will that a true love warrior needs, things might be different . . ._

_Who the hell is Rio?_ Sakura asked.

_Rio?_ _Rio is my lord, Rio is the man I love, the man I serve, the man I would always fight for,_ the voice answered. _Your Sasuke is much like him; I can tell from seeing your memories. He is not interested in weak little girls. That is why he never bothered to return your childish crush._

_I'm not childish!_

_Really? Fawning over him, trying to become a ninja just to be closer to him, making yourself pretty just so he'll notice you? _That_ isn't childish?_

_Just leave me alone!_

_I cannot. I cannot leave you alone any more than you could leave your own limbs alone. There is no cause to fear, Sakura Haruno. Do you want to stay as you've been, always needing someone else to rescue you and helpless without a protector? Or do you want to be the kind of woman that your Sasuke would notice? The kind of woman that he would even love?_

_Yes!_ Sakura exclaimed. _And I'm not just doing it for him! Lee stood up for me! He tried to protect me, and all I could do was watch while they beat him up! I'm not going to be that girl anymore!_

A figure appeared before Sakura, feminine, dressed in a green Chinese dress with black boots and her hair styled in twin braids resembling a chameleon's tail. _Then take my hand, Sakura. And know the power of Rinjuken._

_Who are you?_ Sakura asked as she reached out for the woman.

_Mele,_ the woman replied, taking Sakura's hand in hers.

Sakura's eyes snapped open and she drew a kunai. "What, are you going to do something to me with that?" Kin asked.

"As a matter of fact, yes," Sakura replied, her voice deeper than before. She used the kunai to slice her hair off, surprising Kin and freeing herself from the Sound genin's grip. She stood up and delivered a spinning back kick to Kin's stomach, knocking her down.

"Where did that come from?" Kin asked, startled.

Sakura chuckled. "Wouldn't you like to know?"

Kin threw several needles at Sakura, who blocked them all with her kunai. Just then, Zaku threw a barrage of kunai at Sakura, who dodged them with a jumping back-flip and landed with a kick to Zaku's head. When Dosu attempted to attack her with the Melody Arm, Sakura blocked his swing with her bare hand and struck him with a side kick.

Unbeknownst to Sakura, she was being watched by Team 10 from the bushes, who had come upon hearing signs of trouble. Ino stared at Sakura with fascination, wondering just where she'd gotten that kind of combat skill. Shikamaru and Choji were watching with similar fascination, since Sakura had never shown that kind of martial ability when they were all in the Academy together.

"Slicing Sound Wave!" Zaku shouted, aiming a blast of combined wind and sound waves at Sakura, who used Dosu as a human shield only for that to not quite work due to the power of Zaku's attack. While Sakura was disoriented, Zaku pursued the opportunity to take the fight into close quarters, punching her in the face and kneeing her in the stomach, then elbowing her viciously in the spine. "Not so tough now, are you, bitch?!"

* * *

"Ino, we have to do something," Choji muttered. "He's gonna kill her!"

Ino was paralyzed by indecision. Sakura had been her friend once, and now they were rivals for the heart of the same boy. If Sakura were to die, Ino's chances of winning Sasuke would increase. But she couldn't let Sakura die like that. It wouldn't be right, especially not over a boy!

"It's your call," Shikamaru murmured. "Whatever you decide, Ino, we'll do it."

"Then . . ." Ino paused. "We help her. Besides, I'm not going to let her look good in front of Sasuke!"

Shikamaru chuckled briefly. "Heh. Girls. Troublesome."

* * *

Ino spared a brief death glare at Shikamaru, and then Choji struck with his Human Boulder Technique, rolling at Zaku with impossible speed. Just as Zaku was about to dodge, Sakura took his moment of distraction to kick Zaku right into Choji's path. "You . . . you bitch!" Zaku cried out as Choji slammed him.

"Hey, Ino-pig," Sakura greeted her former friend and current rival, smirking. "How's it going?"

At that moment, Shikamaru went after Kin with the Nara clan Shadow Bind Technique, only for Kin to attack him, forcing him to dodge and interrupting the jutsu's formation. Dosu charged at Ino, only for Sakura to step into the way and lash out with a knifelike tongue, striking him repeatedly in as many pressure points as she could reach in mere seconds. Dosu cried out in pain, only to recover and swing at Sakura; this time, though, it had no effect whatsoever.

"What did you do to me?" Dosu asked.

"_Secret Ringi: Muko Shoha,_" Sakura replied. "You can't access your chakra anymore."

Just then, Zaku came back up, having blasted Choji away with a Slicing Sound Wave. "That takes care of Fatso. Now it's your turn."

"Stay behind me, Ino," Sakura ordered. "I'll finish this guy quick."

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Ino asked irately.

"Saving your ass," Sakura retorted. She breathed deeply. "I was hoping not to have to do this, but I have no choice, I suppose. _Ringi: Rinki Gaiso._"

Immediately, black chakra exploded from Sakura and turned green, forming an aura resembling a chameleon. The aura bonded with Sakura's body, forming green-and-purple armor with a helmet styled after a chameleon. She clenched her fists upon completing the transformation and unclenched them to reveal a pair of sai in her hands. Underneath her helmet, she smirked at the Sound genin.

"Bring it."

* * *

As it turned out, Naruto wasn't the only one with a mental battle. Sasuke was trapped in the recesses of his mind, in his worst nightmare . . . made even more nightmarish by the fact that it had happened. He saw that man, that _monster,_ murder his parents and murder the rest of his family, _their_ family, repeated in a hellish loop that threatened to drive him insane. He heard himself scream at the man to stop, but the man wouldn't stop, not at all.

"_If you want to kill me, run, little brother. Run and cling to your shameful life. Make your hate for me grow, and someday, when you have the same eyes as me . . . come before me."_

The nightmare stopped, only to segue into another. He saw his child self weeping helplessly in front of his parents' bodies. _"Because I was weak . . . because I couldn't do anything . . . Mother and Father are dead! If only . . . if only . . ."_ His child self's voice grew deeper, more slithery as he repeated that mantra. _"If only I had power . . ."_ When he said those words, he pulled at his face, revealing a golden eye with purple mascara surrounding it and a twisted smile.

_No . . ._ Sasuke thought.

_Do you want power, Sasuke Uchiha?_ Rio's voice asked him. _The power to avenge your family, the power to protect the ones dear to you now? You won't find it that way. Down that way lies corruption and death. I should know._

_And what would you know?!_ Sasuke roared in outrage. _What would you know about losing family?!_

At that moment, Sasuke was assaulted by memories that seemed painfully familiar, memories of a young boy standing in the rain surrounded by the dead bodies of his family. He saw that young boy grow up into a young man, trained in the ways of the Fierce Beast-Fist Beast Arts.

Feeling that he was reaching the limits of his growth, he chose the way of the darkness, giving in to the hatred in his heart and even fighting men he'd once called friends. He became stronger, all right, but he also became alone, and in the end, he'd just been a pawn in the game of the very monster that had killed his family and set him on his dark path in the first place.

Sasuke was shocked, to say the least. _You . . . you're just like me . . ._

_Yes, I am,_ Rio replied somberly. _That's why you should stay away from Orochimaru. I am the ultimate example of what happens when you choose power over justice._

_But . . . how do I . . . ?_

_When the time comes, you'll face the man you murdered your family. But right now, our comrades are in danger and they need us. Now, awaken! Devour your fear, devour your sorrow, devour your hate, and turn it into STRENGTH! STRENGTH to protect your comrades, to fight for the ones who need you!_

Sasuke roared as he let the anger, hate, bitterness, and sorrow from that fateful night enter him and transform into power. _YES!_

* * *

In the real world, Sakura felt a rush of powerful chakra, stopping her and the rest of the combatants in their tracks. "What . . . what is that?"

_The same power that fuels you and I, Sakura,_ Mele whispered, _the power of the Confrontation Beast-Fist Akugata._

Sakura turned to see Sasuke, having risen to his feet and engulfed in black-and-purple flame. "Sakura . . ." he snarled. "Which one of those Sound genin forced you to assume that form?"

"Sasuke . . . ?" Sakura asked.

_Rio-sama!_ Mele thought with dark excitement. _You have returned!_

"Who did it?" Sasuke asked. "Who forced you into that form?!"

"It was me!" Zaku declared. "What are you going to do about it, huh, punk-ass?!"

Sasuke merely smirked, a cruel expression only _hinting_ at the level of violence he was going to inflict on the Sound genin. "_Ringi: Rinki Gaiso._"

The lion-themed black-and-gold armor formed over Sasuke's body, transforming him into Kurojishi. Zaku wasn't impressed, though, scoffing at the armored Sasuke. "So you think a flashy transformation is gonna help you? Screw that! Extreme Slicing Sound Wave!"

When the blast had petered out, there was nothing there, not even Sasuke. Zaku chuckled. "Wasted his bitch ass."

"Really?" Sasuke's voice mocked from behind him. Just as Zaku whirled to face him, Sasuke brutally smacked him to the ground. Zaku rolled to his feet, preparing to strike Sasuke down with another Slicing Sound Wave. To his surprise, Sasuke merely "disappeared," in reality moving fast enough to seem invisible until he stopped – right behind Zaku, grabbing his arms and pulling them behind his back. "Proud of these arms, aren't you?"

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" Zaku asked, scared and angry at the same time.

"What am I doing?" Sasuke asked mockingly. "Teaching you the penalty of thinking you can face me in battle, especially after you went after my comrade." He planted his armored foot on Zaku's back and pulled on Zaku's arms, as though he were trying to rip them out of their sockets. Zaku's gasps and whimpers of pain were music to Sasuke's ears, as he smiled viciously behind his helmet's visor.

_What is he doing to him!?_ Sakura thought in horror.

_That is the proof of his love for you,_ Mele replied. _All who dare cross you shall meet their end at his hands. And all who dare cross him shall meet their end at your hands. That is the proof of our love._

Sakura was shocked. _What . . . how . . . is that how you Confrontation Beast-Fist masters prove you love each other?! By hurting people!?_

_Hurting people who deserve it,_ Mele amended. _We aren't monsters, Sakura. Our strength is the proof of our love, and sometimes strength means sending a message to our enemies. These people who came to kill you and your comrades are our enemies, and enemies must be defeated decisively._

Snapping Sakura out of her argument with Mele was the sound of bones being forcibly dislocated, and Zaku's scream of agony. When she looked, Sasuke had kicked Zaku aside and was now stalking toward Dosu, each finger on his left hand glowing with fiery Confrontation Ki.

"You're next . . ." he snarled.

"Damn it," Dosu muttered. _What did you send us into, Lord Orochimaru? That monstrous power . . . you gave him a cursed seal, didn't you? And we're just meant to test his strength, aren't we? Bastard!_ Aloud, "Let's get out of here!"

"'Get out of here'?" Sasuke echoed with a sneer. "No, there is no escape for you. Not after what you did, not after knowing who you serve. No . . . you die now."

Dosu put down the scroll his team had been carrying. "You can have this! This is what you want, right? Just take it and let my team go!"

"You think I'll be pacified by a scroll?" Sasuke mocked. "_Ringi: Maen Gokudan._" He threw an orb of fiery Confrontation Ki at Dosu, who barely managed to dodge in time. "Nice reflexes. Too bad you can't run forever."

* * *

"Sasuke!" Naruto's voice shouted. "Stop this! You've taken them down already! You don't need to kill them!"

"And what are you going to do if I insist on killing them?" Sasuke taunted.

"This," Naruto replied, raising his Dino Minder. "_Bakuryu Change._" Upon pressing the button, gold-green light swirled around his body, transforming him into Abarekiller.

Sasuke chuckled. "Just as well. I've wanted this for a while, Naruto."

"Stop it!" Sakura yelled, rushing between the two young men and hugging Sasuke tightly. "Just stop! This is enough!"

"Sakura . . ." Sasuke whispered, and then fell to his knees with Sakura, the Black Lion Armor disappearing to reveal that his skin was marred with fiery black marks that were now fading. "What . . . what happened to me?"

"When Orochimaru bit you . . . that mark . . ." Sakura murmured.

"It wasn't just the mark," Sasuke admitted. "I was angry. Angry that those bastards would hurt you . . . and I just lost it . . ."

"What about trying to fight Naruto?" Sakura asked.

"That might have been the mark, but that was also me," Sasuke confessed. "I've . . . I've been seeing Naruto grow, and feeling stagnant compared to him. Now that I had power, too, just like his . . . it felt good, so good . . . and it scares me."

_Then you learn to control it,_ Rio murmured. _The Rinjuken Akugata is not for those without the fortitude to withstand the darkness within their own hearts._

"Is everything cool?" Naruto asked.

"Yeah," Sakura replied.

"Green looks good on you, Sakura," Naruto remarked, dispelling the Zero suit as a blushing Sakura dispelled her own armor.

Looking around, Team 7 noticed that the Sound trio had fled, and that Team 10 was still there. The rest of Lee's team was there, too, having come after him. "Just what is going on here?" Neji Hyuga asked.

Lee rose to his feet. "Are you all right, fair Sakura?"

"Yeah, I am, Lee, thanks," Sakura replied.

"Wild party, huh?" Tenten remarked. "And to think I missed action like that."

"Trust me, that was action you'd rather not be there for," Shikamaru replied wearily.

"Yeah . . ." Choji groaned.

"Wow, you guys all showed up for us?" Naruto asked. "Didn't know we were _that_ special."

"We came for Sakura, you dope!" Ino yelled.

Naruto chuckled. "I understand. Sakura provokes those reactions in people."

Ino glared at Naruto as she grasped the meaning of what he'd said. "You have a filthy mind, Uzumaki."

"And you love it, don't you?" Naruto retorted with a smirk.

"Naruto!" Sakura yelled. "Quit flirting with Ino-pig! You're not _that_ desperate, are you?!"

Naruto was still smirking. "You never know. Blonds might really have more fun, after all."

Ino huffed, although she couldn't quite conceal a blush. _What the hell happened to that goofy kid in the hideous orange jumpsuit?_

Sasuke picked up the scroll Dosu had left behind, and saw that it was an Earth scroll. "Good." He smirked at Team 10 and Team Guy. "Anyone feel like fighting us for our scrolls?"

". . . Not quite," Shikamaru replied.

"You're not worth my time yet," Neji answered coldly.

"Touchy, aren't you?" Naruto commented.

* * *

End Notes: There you have it! The Confrontation Beast Hall has been reborn, although will Sasuke have the strength to avoid being consumed by the Akugata? Will Rio be able to help him overcome the demons of his past to bring him to a better future? Will Mele get Sakura to stake her claim on Sasuke, the reincarnation of her Lord Rio? What of Orochimaru and his connection to the Wicked Life God, or the other enemies that lay in the path of Team 7? Will other Sentai Warriors and Villains reemerge in the World of Shinobi? For the answers to those questions and others, read on!

P.S. "Maen Gokudan" is "Demon Blaze Hell Bullet," which is again an original Ringi combining fire chakra with Confrontation Ki.


	6. A Ranger's Test of Strength

"Naruto vs. Super Sentai"

Chapter 6: "A Ranger's Test of Strength"

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and VIZ. Super Sentai belongs to Toei and TV Asahi. I make no money from the use of either property or their associated characters in this story.

Author's note: I know it's been five months since the last chapter I posted. I am quite sorry for that; it's taken me some time to recover my enthusiasm for this story. Alas, I have recovered my enthusiasm, and I am ready to write future chapters of this story.

For starters, we're gonna go straight to the preliminaries for the third stage of the Chunin Exams. What sorts of mayhem will happen? How will the new Abarekiller and the scions of the RinJyuKen fighting style handle their opponents, and will there be more Rangers on the way? To answer those questions, read on!

* * *

It hadn't been an easy five days between the start of the second stage of the Chunin Exams and their end. Not only had Team 7 had to take on the Sound genin, but they'd also had to fight other villages' genin. They'd gotten help from Kabuto, but Naruto didn't trust him one bit, as Mikoto could smell Dezumozorya on the bespectacled genin, or so he said.

Nonetheless, they'd made it to the tower the surviving genin teams were all supposed to enter by the end of the five-day period. Naruto looked around and saw Team 8 (Hinata, Kiba, and Shino), Team 10 (Ino, Shikamaru, and Choji), Guy's team (Neji, Lee, and Tenten), the Sand trio, Kabuto's team . . . and the Sound genin. Naruto gave them a warning scowl, reminding them that his team had unfinished business with them.

Standing in the balcony above the genin were the Hokage and the jonin-sensei for the teams that had made it, specifically Kakashi for Team 7, Kurenai for Team 8, Asuma for Team 10, Guy for his team, Baki for the Sand trio, a creepy-looking Sound jonin for the Sound trio, and someone Naruto didn't recognize for Kabuto's team. "I'm glad you've all made it," the Hokage said. "Truthfully, this is a great occasion, but there are too many of you to advance right now, not without some trimming. Before that happens, I must tell you the truth behind the Chunin Exams."

"The truth?" Kiba asked.

"Yes," the Hokage replied. "The truth is that the Chunin Exams are a more civilized alternative to war between our nations. The shinobi nations were all enemies at one point or another, but over time we have managed to put our feuds aside or at least channel them into something less overtly destructive. The Chunin Exams serve as the proving grounds of young shinobi such as yourselves, who fight not only for their own futures, but for the prestige of their villages."

"For the prestige of our villages?" Naruto asked.

"Yes," the Hokage answered. "The Chunin Exams will be witnessed by prospective clients from all over the world who will be watching to see which villages yield the most talented ninja. What they see from all of you will determine the villages that get the best assignments. Fear not, it is not all about money. It is also about friendship. Risking our lives against one another, testing the balance of life and death, that is the shape of friendship in our world."

Another jonin, this one a sickly-looking young man with bags under his eyes, coughed. "May I take over from here, Lord Hokage?" he asked.

"Of course, Hayate," the Hokage replied.

Hayate stepped down onto an upraised platform on the ground. "Since there are too many of you to advance properly, we are going to use this time to cut down the numbers somewhat. To do this, we will enter your names into a machine that will randomly select two of you at a time to come down here and fight. The fights will last until one of you surrenders or is unable to continue. By the end, there should be only ten of you left, which will be enough to proceed onto the true final part of the exams. If any of you wish to back out, now is the time."

Kabuto coughed. "I do."

"Very well," Hayate conceded. He looked at the jonin-sensei for Kabuto's team. "Escort him out." The jonin-sensei nodded and complied with that order. Hayate turned back to the remaining genin. "Now, when the names are selected for the first match, I want everyone except those selected to go up to the balcony and observe from there. Understood?"

* * *

The first match was Sasuke Uchiha versus Yoroi Akado. As everyone else went up to the balcony, Naruto cast a warning look at Sasuke and whispered, "Keep your cool. Last thing we need is you wasting the guy."

Sasuke merely nodded and stared down his opponent, a young man dressed in a purple sleeveless tunic and pants over a short-sleeved white shirt. His face was concealed by some kind of purple mask that left his eyes exposed, and his eyes were covered up by some strange black-tinted bifocals.

"Are you ready?" Hayate asked them.

"Yeah," Sasuke replied.

"Let's do this," Yoroi said.

"Begin!" Hayate shouted.

The fight began, with Yoroi lunging at Sasuke and grabbing him by the head with a glowing hand. To Sasuke's surprise, he could feel his energy being sapped just from Yoroi's touch. _What the hell is this?_ Sasuke thought.

_It's his power,_ Rio warned him. _He can drain chakra by tactile contact, which is rather dangerous for us in the state we're in._

_What do you mean?_ Sasuke asked.

_The cursed seal Orochimaru left on you seeped into our Rinki,_ Rio replied. _That's partly because they draw upon the same source of power, the darkness within your soul. If we're forced to draw upon the cursed seal's power, it could further intertwine with our Rinki, until we're unable to use it entirely for fear of the darkness within us taking over completely._

_Got you,_ Sasuke thought, and grabbed Yoroi's wrist, squeezing hard to force him to let go. Once Yoroi let go, Sasuke kicked him in the stomach and sprang to his feet, shifting into a fighting stance. "Bring it."

Yoroi went after Sasuke again with his chakra-draining hand, but Sasuke grabbed his wrist and slammed him to the ground. Yoroi just grabbed Sasuke's throat with his other hand and began sucking his chakra again. Sasuke struggled in Yoroi's grip as he felt his chakra being sucked into Yoroi.

"Sasuke!" Sakura shouted.

"Hey, Sasuke!" Naruto shouted. "You're not going to let this guy kick your ass, are you?! You owe me a fight in the finals!"

Sasuke snarled and concentrated his Rinki into his fist, drawing it back for a brutal punch to Yoroi's stomach. Having forced Yoroi to let go of him by knocking the breath out of him, Sasuke jumped back and called forth his Rinki, which began to take the shape of a black lion. This startled everyone present except for Sakura, Naruto, Guy's team, and Team 10, who'd already seen this before.

"_Ringi: Goyu Shoda!_" Sasuke called out, charging Yoroi at high speed and punching him as hard as he felt Yoroi could survive, since he wasn't actually trying to kill his opponent. "_Resshuken!_" Sasuke kicked Yoroi so hard Yoroi ended up almost embedded within the far wall.

"Winner: Sasuke Uchiha!" Hayate declared.

Sasuke breathed deeply, only to collapse on his knees as the cursed seal began to flare up. He gritted his teeth as he fought back, relying on the training Rio had subjected him to within their mindscape. This didn't go unnoticed by Kakashi, Sakura, or Naruto; Kakashi even flickered down to Sasuke.

"Come on, Sasuke," he said. "It's time we took care of that thing." He escorted Sasuke away.

* * *

The second match turned out to be Naruto Uzumaki versus Kiba Inuzuka. "Hell, yeah!" Kiba cheered. "We got this one in the bag, Akamaru!"

Both Kiba and Naruto got into the ring, Naruto cracking his neck while he looked at Kiba. "I'm going to teach you what a big mistake it was to count me out," Naruto declared softly.

"Whatever, Naruto," Kiba dismissed him. "You might have changed your clothes, but you're still a big loser."

Naruto chuckled. "If I'm such a loser, then come at me. Strike me down. You should be able to do it. I'm no challenge, remember?"

"Your funeral," Kiba answered. "Since you're begging me to put you out of your misery, I might as well do it quick." He took Akamaru out of his coat and gave him what looked like a soldier pill. Immediately, Akamaru's fur turned red – and then he turned into a more feral clone of Kiba.

Naruto raised an eyebrow. "I don't know about you, but I liked Akamaru better before he started looking like you."

Kiba snarled. "Quadruped Technique!" Immediately, his claws and fangs grew sharper, and a more animalistic look settled into his eyes. Both Kiba and the transformed Akamaru charged at Naruto for a technique they called, "Fang over Fang!" Naruto just stood there, calmly waiting for the twisting tornados to reach him – and then he yanked Kiba by the collar of his coat and threw him at Akamaru, knocking them both out of their tornado-styled movements.

"Well, that's interesting," Kurenai remarked.

Not giving them an opportunity to recover, Naruto darted between Kiba and Akamaru and started fighting them as they clawed at him. While Kiba and Akamaru managed to tear through the sleeves of Naruto's jacket to get at the flesh beneath, Naruto wasn't faring so badly himself. He slammed an elbow into Akamaru's gut and jammed the opposite knee into Kiba's gut, then back-flipped into the air and grabbed their heads before slamming them into each other. As he came down, he did a split kick that struck them both in the chest, landing on his hands and flipping onto his feet.

"Still think I'm a loser?" Naruto asked.

"Where'd that come from?" Kiba asked, startled. "How the hell did you get that good?!"

"A ninja never reveals his secrets," Naruto replied with a mocking smirk.

"Why, you –!" Kiba snarled and threw out smoke bombs to obscure Naruto's vision. "Let's see how well you fight when you can't see! Fang over Fang!"

He and Akamaru performed their twisting attack on Naruto, setting upon him in a frenzy of claws and fangs. Naruto fought back, taking their swipes to get close enough to hit them. It was chaos inside the smokescreen, but Naruto ultimately prevailed, mainly by stabbing Akamaru in a pressure point with a chakra needle, thus depriving Kiba of his support. Then he switched to a chakra scalpel and sliced at Kiba's muscles until Kiba was a useless heap.

"Winner: Naruto Uzumaki!" Hayate declared.

"You . . . how . . . ?" Kiba asked from his helpless position.

"Let's just say I've done a lot of changing since you and I last saw each other at the Academy," Naruto replied, smiling cryptically. He walked back up to the balcony, where he tore off the shredded sleeves of his jacket. Hinata, who'd been watching him, blushed when she saw his bare arms; even with all those scratches on him, those arms looked quite strong for their leanness.

Kurenai nudged Hinata while Kiba was carried out on a stretcher. Hinata, realizing what her sensei was trying to do, walked over to Naruto with a small jar of healing ointment in her hands. "Naruto-kun, I . . ."

"It's ok, Hinata." Naruto smiled gently at her. "Thanks." He took the healing ointment and rubbed it on his wounded arms. "Wow, this stuff works great; I'm feeling better already. Thanks, Hinata!"

"You're . . . you're welcome," Hinata whispered.

The next two fights proceeded without incident. Shikamaru beat Kin by outmaneuvering the genjutsu produced by the bells attached to her senbon, while Shino dealt Zaku a brutal defeat by way of covertly clogging the sound-conducting pipes in his arms with kikai insects. The end result had been rather gruesome; his arms had exploded in a shower of blood and bone. Then the time came for Temari to face Tenten, which was where things got interesting.

* * *

The fight started with Tenten racing around Temari to obscure her movements, and throwing various weapons that could be thrown at Temari. Temari simply opened her fan to expose the first moon embroidered on it and swung it, generating a powerful air pulse to block the weapons, which fell scattered around her. Tenten didn't give up, trying again with an even bigger barrage of projectile weapons, only for Temari to open her fan to the second moon.

"One more . . . and you're done," the Sand kunoichi threatened.

Tenten pulled out two scrolls full of sealed weapons and tossed them into the air, leaping up to dance gracefully between the unwinding scrolls. The weapons unsealed themselves by the multitude, and Tenten flung them all at Temari, who simply opened her fan to the third and final moon . . . and deflected all the weapons with another wind pulse.

"What kind of technique was that?" Naruto asked.

"The Twin Rising Dragons," Guy replied. "Her ultimate technique."

"Some ultimate technique," Naruto muttered.

"My turn," Temari whispered threateningly. Before she could move, Tenten had lifted all of her weapons up by way of monofilament wires attached to her fingers and was manipulating them all to attack Temari again. "Nice try, girl, but not good enough. Wind Scythe Technique!" She swung her opened fan and a powerful burst of slicing wind struck Tenten, with more following the first.

"Tenten!" Lee shouted, horrified at the brutality visited upon his teammate. Neji beside him just seemed like he could care less.

Unable to take any more, Tenten plummeted, only to be caught – if one could call it that – on Temari's closed fan. Naruto cringed at the sight of it. "Someone's gonna have back problems in the future . . ."

"Not funny, Naruto," Sakura reprimanded her teammate.

"Wasn't trying," Naruto answered soberly.

In the arena below, Temari threw Tenten at the wall with enough force that she was sure to break something if she hit. Lee was about to catch her when one of the swords lying on the ground changed form, becoming a giant red-and-gold zanbato with the kanji for "fire" emblazoned on the blade. The strange zanbato shot behind Tenten and cushioned her impact, impossible as it sounded . . . not to mention _looked._

Things just got crazier when the "fire" kanji flashed in front of Tenten's limp frame, causing her to stiffen as red-and-black skintight armor with the fire kanji as the visor of her helmet formed over her clothes. It only lasted for a moment, so fast that no one was quite sure what they'd seen – except for Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke.

_She's like us,_ Mikoto murmured.

_Yeah . . . but who is she?_ Naruto asked.

_We'll have to find that out later,_ Mikoto answered.

Tenten's body gently slipped to the ground as the zanbato changed into a smaller, slimmer katana, albeit almost as ornate as the zanbato itself. "Tenten!" Lee shouted, jumping down after her.

"Winner . . . Temari!" Hayate declared.

* * *

After Tenten had been carried to the infirmary and Temari had returned to the balcony to join her siblings and jonin-sensei, Hayate called Sakura and Ino down for the next match. Sakura and Ino stood in the arena, with Sakura's green eyes staring into Ino's blue eyes.

"It's time we put childish things aside, Ino," Sakura stated. "Our rivalry over Sasuke . . . over so many other things . . . we cannot face each other as the little girls we were, Ino. No, we must face each other as true kunoichi!"

Ino glared at Sakura. "Whatever you say, chameleon freak."

Sakura pulled her headband out of her hair and tied it around her forehead. "You only call me that because you don't understand what I've become. I'll enlighten you." She shifted into a fighting stance. "Come, Ino!"

Ino removed her headband from around her waist and tied it around her forehead, too. "Don't write checks with your mouth that your ass can't cash, Sakura."

Sakura laughed, a melodious yet malicious sound. "Besides, even if we were still fighting over Sasuke, it doesn't matter anymore. He's _mine._"

That was when Ino lost it, charging at Sakura with her fist cocked back. Sakura calmly sidestepped Ino's punch, and flicked her tongue out, stabbing Ino in a pressure point in her arm, rendering it useless. Ino clutched her wounded arm, glaring at Sakura. "What are you?!"

"More than you could dream of," Sakura answered, angering Ino enough that Ino attempted to attack Sakura with her remaining useful arm. Sakura caught Ino's wrist and twisted her opponent's arm behind her back. "Really, is this the best you could do?"

Ino slammed the back of her head into Sakura's nose, nearly breaking it. Having freed herself from Sakura's grip, Ino twisted around and swept her leg out to trip Sakura. Unfortunately for her, Sakura back-flipped and landed on her hands before spinning on them to kick Ino in her useless arm. A pained cry from Ino made Sakura smirk with cruel satisfaction.

"Wow, Ino's getting beaten up pretty badly," Choji commented. "I wanna know where Sakura learned how to do that thing with her tongue."

Asuma looked at Kakashi, who had returned without Sasuke, suspiciously, and Kakashi answered with a shrug. Truth be told, he had no clue where Sakura was getting her fighting skills from, either. Presumably, she'd been training on her own, but Sakura didn't really seem like the kind to train, given her obsession with Sasuke. Maybe he was wrong about her, though. . . .

Sakura landed on her feet and shifted into a combat stance, beckoning Ino with her outstretched hand. A furious Ino charged at Sakura, only for Sakura to flick her tongue out again to stab Ino in a pressure point in her leg. Ino immediately crumpled to the ground in an agonized heap.

The roseate-haired girl strode to Ino, smirking. "You can surrender, you know. Nobody's going to hold it against you."

"Go to hell, Sakura . . ." Ino snapped, lifting her good leg to kick Sakura in the stomach. Sakura stumbled back, pleasantly surprised by the force Ino had put into her kick.

"Not bad, Ino," Sakura remarked, just before Ino locked eyes with her. "Oh? You're going to pull that technique? Go ahead. I want you to see this."

"Mind Body Switch Technique!" Ino called out, transferring her mind into Sakura's body.

"Well, that's it for Sakura," Shikamaru remarked. "Once Ino gets inside someone's head, they're finished."

_

* * *

_

Inside Sakura's mind, Ino found herself in chains. "What's going on here?! What did you do to me?!"

"_I'd like you to meet a new friend of mine," Sakura replied, stepping out of the shadows. Beside her was a beautiful young woman with black hair tied into twin braids resembling a chameleon's tail and wearing a green short dress with black leather straps. "Mele, meet Ino. Ino, meet Mele."_

"_No wonder Sakura was kicking my ass!" Ino yelled, glaring at Mele. "Who are you and what have you done to Sakura?!"_

"_The only thing I've done is liberate her from the weaknesses that would have kept her from becoming a formidable kunoichi," Mele answered. "I'm not about to have a weak reincarnation, especially when the reincarnation of my Rio-sama deserves so much better than that."_

"_Who's Rio?" Ino asked._

"_I believe you know him as 'Sasuke-kun,'" Mele replied, using a falsely affectionate tone on "Sasuke-kun" to mock Ino. "Grow up, Ino. Sasuke and Rio-sama do not want weak girls who fawn over them without having the strength and will to fight beside them. That is why they belong to Sakura-chan and I."_

_Ino thrashed in her chains. "When I get out of here, you are so . . . !" Then her chains came loose. "What's going on?"_

"_I've already proven that ours is the stronger mind," Mele replied. "You can leave now. Admit your defeat and go."_

"_No!" Ino declared. "I won't admit defeat! Not to you! Not to either of you!"_

_Mele smiled, and it was surprisingly affectionate. "There's hope for you yet. If you'd take your training a little more seriously . . . there's a chance you could be my equal someday."_

"_Count on it," Ino answered._

* * *

Returning to her body, Ino found herself staring into Sakura's eyes, which were full of quiet affection. "Ino . . . you still wanna do this?"

"Yeah," Ino replied.

Sakura flicked her tongue out to strike Ino in her numbed arm and leg, restoring mobility and strength to those limbs. Ino got up and starred Sakura down. "Whoever goes down first has to surrender. Sound good?" Sakura asked.

"Sounds good," Ino replied, flexing her reusable hand.

The fight was short, but sweet, with both Ino and Sakura giving it all they had. In the end, Ino went down, having been hit with a six-strike combo from Sakura, and she didn't get up immediately. "Winner: Sakura Haruno!" Hayate declared.

Asuma carried Ino back up to the balcony, while Sakura went up to join Naruto and Kakashi. "Great job, Sakura!" Naruto complimented.

"Thanks, Naruto," Sakura replied.

"Indeed, Sakura, you've improved greatly from where you started," Kakashi added. "I'm curious as to how, exactly."

"I'll tell you, but not right now," Sakura answered. "In the meantime, where's Sasuke?"

"Recovering," Kakashi replied simply.

The next fight was Kankuro vs. Misumi Tsurugi. The fight didn't last that long, Misumi managing to trap Kankuro with his inhumanly elastic body . . . only for "Kankuro" to be revealed as a puppet. The real Kankuro then used the puppet, Crow, to break every bone in Misumi's body except his neck, leaving him as the winner of the match.

* * *

After that came . . . Neji Hyuga vs. Hinata Hyuga, much to Team 8's consternation. "Be careful, Hinata," Shino warned.

"Don't lose faith in yourself, Hinata," Kurenai encouraged her pupil as she went down to the arena to confront Neji.

"You can give up now," Neji sneered. "I know why you're here – at the insistence of your teammates, because the Chunin Exams need to be taken as a complete unit. You have no will to fight, no determination in your body whatsoever. You're weak, Hinata, and you've always been that way. So why bother acting different?"

Hinata stared at Neji. "I . . . came here to change . . . myself. I came here to prove . . . that I'm not weak."

Neji's sneer deepened. "Winners are winners, and losers are losers. That is the decree of fate, and nothing you or I can do will change that. So quit acting like you're any different than you are."

"How can he say that to her?" Naruto asked indignantly. "Aren't they supposed to be family?!"

"It is a lot more complicated than it looks," Lee replied soberly. "Yes, they are family, but on different sides. The Hyuga clan has long been divided into a main house and several branch houses. The branch houses of the Hyuga clan are sworn to lifelong servitude to the main house, and that is enforced in ways I would not like to repeat here. Hinata is from the main house, and Neji is from a branch house. This upsets Neji greatly."

"Doesn't give him a right to act like a dick to his own cousin," Naruto snapped. "Not like she asked to be born to the main house."

Hinata began to visibly quiver, and that was when Naruto got pissed. _What is he trying to do, break her in two with just his words?!_

_Exactly,_ Mikoto replied grimly. _Just like I did to the Abarangers. That was the whole point of my games, proving to them that the world was a worthless place and humans were a worthless species. Believe me, I know how it's done._

Naruto gripped the railing tightly, his knuckles turning white. "Hinata! Don't you dare listen to him! You're a lot stronger than you think you are!"

"Naruto-kun . . ." Hinata whispered, her heart soaring from hearing his words. She looked Neji in the eye. "I'm not going to walk away from here. Not now." She activated her Byakugan, the blood vessels in her eyes and the veins around those eyes bulging as pupils formed in their centers. "Defend yourself . . . brother."

"Brother?" Naruto asked.

_Their fathers must have been identical twins,_ Mikoto explained. _Genetically, that would make Hinata and Neji half-siblings._

Neji activated his Byakugan as well, and the fight began, with both Hyuga clan members swiping at each other with their fingertips and dodging each other's swipes. Flashes of chakra could be seen every time the two made contact with one another. "What kind of fighting style is that?" Naruto wondered.

"The Gentle Fist," Lee explained. "While the Strong Fist style practiced by myself and Guy-sensei focuses on external damage, the Gentle Fist causes internal damage and is specifically tailored to work in tandem with the Byakugan. The Byakugan is a bloodline limit unique to the Hyuga clan, and it grants 360-degree vision as well as the ability to see all the chakra nodes in the human body. Hitting one of those nodes can either shut down or increase chakra flow in that area. It can also do terrible internal damage, as the chakra nodes are wrapped around vital organs."

"Wow . . ." Naruto uttered.

_I'm thinking about dissecting the Gentle Fist and finding a way to incorporate some of it into the style I've taught you,_ Mikoto stated.

_That would be great!_ Naruto thought. Aloud, "Hey, she's giving him all he can handle and then some! Go for it, Hinata! You can do it!"

Unfortunately, around the time Naruto said that, Neji had struck Hinata in the chest, right where her heart would be, causing her to cough up blood. "Nice try," Neji sneered, "but even with your useless little boyfriend cheering you on, you're still no match for me, Hinata. It was a quirk of fate that you and I ended up where we are within the Hyuga clan. Truth be told, you were never worthy of being the heir to the main house, and your father knew that as well as I do. You've suffered all these years, trying to be something you had no chance of being. You can stop now. Be at peace with what you are!"

To Neji's surprise, Hinata began to shake, but not with fear . . . with repressed sorrowful laughter. "Neji, my brother . . . I'm not the one suffering. _You_ are. The one who is most concerned with the fate of the Hyuga clan and its houses is you. You suffer under the unfairness of our status within the clan, and you want to change that fate even more than I do . . ."

"The match is over!" Hayate shouted. "Neji, you can stop now!"

Neji didn't listen, blinded by his rage at how Hinata had deconstructed him, charging to end her life – only to be stopped by Guy, Kurenai, Asuma, and Kakashi. Neji gritted his teeth in rage. "Special protection for the main house, hmm?" he sneered.

"Stop this, Neji," Guy ordered. "You promised me you wouldn't let your personal feelings get in the way."

Just then, Hinata collapsed, prompting Kurenai to run over to her and open her jacket to feel for a heartbeat. "She's having a heart attack!"

"Hinata!" Naruto shouted, jumping off the balcony and dashing to Hinata's side.

"Naruto . . ." Hinata whispered. "Did I . . . did I change at all . . . at least a little bit?"

"You did great, Hinata," Naruto whispered back. "You did great. You didn't give up at all. That's all anybody can ask for."

The medical ninja arrived to take Hinata away on a stretcher, with Naruto holding her hand until they finally forced him to let go and stand back. Naruto watched them take her away, biting back tears of sorrow and rage for what had been done to Hinata. He then turned to Neji and started walking toward him, cold rage in his eyes. "I hope you're satisfied with yourself, you son of a bitch."

"So you have feelings for that loser cousin of mine?" Neji sneered.

"She believed in me . . . at a time when nobody else did or was even willing to acknowledge me," Naruto whispered. "For some reason, I became her inspiration, and that makes me responsible for her in a sense. This will not go without being avenged, Neji Hyuga. Pray to whatever impotent god you worship that I don't face you in the finals of the Chunin Exams."

Neji's sneer turned into a glare. "Once a loser, always a loser. No wonder you two are so drawn to each other."

Naruto turned his glare upon Neji and opened his fists to reveal needle-blade claws made of chakra and extending from his fingertips. He charged Neji, ready to make him pay for insulting Hinata no matter the rules of the Chunin Exams. Before he could reach Neji, he was stopped by Lee bodily blocking his path.

"Get out of the way, Lee," Naruto ordered.

"I cannot," Lee replied. "I understand your rage more than you think I do, but you will be disqualified if you attack him outside the confines of an official match. Think about it. Would it not be more satisfying for your victory over Neji to occur in front of a full arena of spectators, watching as you prove that a so-called loser _can_ defeat a reputed prodigy?"

Naruto smiled softly, but it was not a happy smile. It was one that promised death for the one who looked into it directly. He retracted the chakra needles and kneeled down in front of the blood Hinata had coughed up. He dipped his fingers in it and removed his headband with his other hand, before drawing an encircled three-toed dinosaur claw in the center of his forehead.

"On my honor as a Ranger and a ninja, I will avenge Hinata," Naruto vowed. "You have one month to prepare for the penalty game, Neji Hyuga. It starts at the finals. After that, I'll show you how much 'fate' is really worth."

* * *

End Notes: There you have it. The preliminary matches have begun, and Naruto, Sakura, and Sasuke have all proven victorious over their foes. However, what has happened to Sasuke, and what is the "penalty game" that Naruto has in mind for Neji after Hinata's defeat at his hands? Not to mention, just what is the secret behind that strange zanbato and the armor that Tenten instinctively summoned for that singular moment during her match with Temari? For the answers to these questions and others, hang on for the next chapter!


	7. The Killer Behind His Eyes

"Naruto vs. Super Sentai"

Chapter 7: "The Killer behind His Eyes"

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto and VIZ Media. Super Sentai belongs to Toei and TV Asahi. I make no money from the use of either property or their associated characters in this story. This is all about my own personal entertainment, and hopefully that of my readers.

Author's note: Sorry for being away for five months _again;_ this seems to be habit-forming with me. With that out of the way, this chapter is going to advance the storyline here. With Hinata down and Naruto out for Neji's blood, not to mention the lingering threat of Dezumozorya and whatever other foes from the Sentai worlds were brought into the Naruverse, who knows what could happen? What other warriors will emerge, for good or for evil? For the answers to those questions and others, let's go on!

* * *

"Where am I?" Lee wondered. The last thing he remembered, he'd been fighting Gaara of the Desert. Everything he had, he'd poured into taking down Gaara . . . and none of it had been quite enough to finish him.

"You're with me," a calm yet giddy-sounding voice replied, prompting Lee to turn and see a figure garbed in skintight green armor with silver sleeves, a gold shield around his torso, and a green helmet with a shuriken-shaped visor. "Hey."

"Who are you?" Lee asked.

"My name was Asuka Kagura," the armored man replied. "Now, you can call me Shurikenger. No, wait, you can't . . . not anymore. My time is over."

"Do you mean to say that you are dying?" Lee inquired.

"Think of it more as rebirth," Shurikenger amended. He extended a green-and-gold ball with an embedded green medal with a shuriken engraved on it to Lee. "You will carry on for me. You will be the new Shurikenger."

"But how . . . ?" Lee asked, even as he took the ball.

"Take the Shuriken Ball, thrust it out, and call out 'Tenku Shinobi Change,'" Shurikenger instructed. "The transformation will assert itself and empower you in ways you never imagined."

Lee experimentally pushed out the Shuriken Ball in his hands. "Tenku Shinobi Change!" Immediately, the medal inside the ball whirred, generating a green aura around Lee that completely consumed him before reforming him as an armored warrior identical to Shurikenger. Lee flexed his fingers inside his gloves. "Wow . . . is this . . . ?"

"Yes," the original Shurikenger, now changed back to a handsome dark-haired young man, confirmed. "This is the power of Shurikenger. It is yours now. Do not be afraid, Rock Lee. I will still be with you. Farewell for now."

Asuka Kagura faded away, and so did the world around the newly minted Shurikenger.

* * *

"LEE!" Might Guy shouted.

"Guy-sensei?" Lee asked. "I feel . . . strange."

"Strange how, my lovable student?" Guy prompted.

"I had a dream," Lee explained. "I was confronted by a man in green, and he gave me a strange ball that gave me some kind of odd armor."

"Would that be it?" Guy asked, gesturing to the round green object in Lee's right hand. When Lee noticed it, he gasped in shock.

"But . . . it was . . . a dream . . ." Lee uttered in astonishment.

"Maybe, maybe not," Guy remarked. "How do you feel?"

Lee jumped out of bed, performed an acrobatic flip, and landed on the ground. "A little bit sore, but it is nothing I cannot overcome with hard work!"

"That's great news, because Gaara crushed your arm and leg and would have done the same to the rest of your body had I not stopped him," Guy explained.

Lee had a sudden flash of memory as the ghost of past pain ran up the very arm and leg Guy had referenced. Guy placed a comforting hand on Lee's shoulder. "Don't worry about it. If that ball works the way I think it works, you should be fine. Given your new strength, though . . . how about running 500 laps around Konoha with me?"

"And if I cannot do that, I will do a thousand laps around Konoha on my hands!" Lee declared exuberantly.

"That's the spirit," Guy praised his student.

That was when the nurse came in. "What are you doing out of bed?" she asked.

"I am feeling much better, and I thank you most kindly for seeing to my care!" Lee replied.

"How?" the nurse wondered. "Those wounds should have crippled you for life!"

"It is nothing short of a miracle," Guy responded.

"Just let me give you one last checkup," the nurse requested.

One checkup later, the nurse was gaping at Lee with astonishment evident in her expression. "You healed . . . so fast, so thoroughly . . . it's incredible!"

"I, too, was astonished when I awakened," Lee admitted. "I must request, though, that I be let out of here to further my training. There is much I must do if I am to restore myself to my peak."

The nurse nodded mutely, still too stunned to say a word.

* * *

In one of Konoha's many forests, several trees fell, cut down by an extremely sharp blade. That blade belonged to Abarekiller, a.k.a. Naruto Uzumaki . . . and he was not happy in the slightest.

"Neji . . ." he growled. With an enraged scream, he transformed into Abare Mode and began tearing through trees in a berserk frenzy with the arrow-like blades growing from the backs of his gloves.

_Neji's smug smirk, Hinata's pained face as she fought for her life . . ._

"He has to pay," Naruto growled. "He has to _pay!_" On that final word, he generated a wave of slicing energy from his blades that nearly cut down the entire section of forest he was in.

_Naruto, stop!_ Mikoto ordered.

"Why the hell should I?" Naruto asked furiously. "Did Neji stop? _Did he?_"

_Giving in to your anger isn't a wise option,_ Mikoto warned. _Or did you forget that Dezumozorya marked us? And as long as we bear his mark, any excess of negative emotion will only enable him to get a foothold in our soul. He's already made that damnable Demon Fox stronger, and the more you rage, the more you feed into its power, too._

Naruto breathed deeply, trying to calm himself. "I can't forgive him . . . I can't forgive what he did to Hinata!"

_You don't have to,_ Mikoto answered. _Just be careful when you deal with him. After all, Hinata begged you to spare him._

"I don't remember that," Naruto said.

_

* * *

_

Mikoto Nakadai slipped into Hinata's hospital room. The doctors had done their best, but they did not have the ability to completely heal Hinata. Enough to keep her alive, but the rest she would have to tough out on her own. Not if Mikoto had anything to say about it.

_He'd managed to adapt his own medical techniques with the unique medical concepts this world had, and combined with his talents . . . Hinata wouldn't be coughing up blood anymore. He smiled at Hinata, so angelic she looked in her slumber. On impulse, he kissed her forehead and turned to leave, only to stop when he heard her voice._

"_Naruto?" she asked._

"_Yes?" Mikoto replied. After all, he technically _was_ Naruto, or at least the remnants of the person Naruto had once been. He turned back to look at Hinata, whose pearl-white eyes stared into his blue ones._

"_I'm glad . . . you came to see me . . ." she whispered._

_Mikoto walked over to Hinata and took one of her hands in his. "I'm going to fight Neji in the finals. I won't show him mercy, Hinata. Not after what he did to you."_

"_Don't, Naruto . . ." Hinata pleaded. "It's not the answer. Neji has been living his life for the sake of vengeance and it's ruined him. I don't want the same to happen to you. You're too . . . too kind for that."_

_Mikoto chuckled softly. "You really think that?"_

"_Yes, Naruto, I do," Hinata whispered._

"_What does Neji have to seek vengeance for?" Mikoto asked, his tone darkening. "What crime could you have committed against him that was so great he felt perfectly justified in trying to kill you?"_

"_Our family is divided, Naruto," Hinata explained, "into the main house, where my sister Hanabi and I descend from, and several branch houses, where Neji descends from. The branch houses live in servitude to the main house, sworn to protect the main house to the end of their lives. My father's twin, Neji's father, sacrificed himself for the sake of my father years ago, when we were both very young . . . and Neji never forgave the main house for that. As the years went by, he only became more and more filled with hate, until the hate eclipsed everything else that he'd ever loved. . . ."_

_Mikoto saw tears in Hinata's eyes, and he held her hand more tightly, to reassure her. "I didn't know . . ."_

"_I know you didn't," Hinata whispered, "but that's why I'm begging you . . . don't kill Neji. Don't be like him and become so full of hate you can't remember what it's like to love something."_

_The sad thing was that Neji sounded a lot like the man Mikoto had been, except instead of hate, it was all-consuming contempt Mikoto had felt – contempt for his fellow humans, believing them all to be fundamentally inferior to him. He'd never loved anything or anyone in his life, and he didn't know how much of it was Dezumozorya's influence and how much was his own twisted nature. Even Lijewel, sweet Lijewel . . . he'd never loved, no matter how much she'd loved him._

"_Thank you, Hinata," he whispered, kissing her hand briefly before getting up and turning away so swiftly he didn't see her blush. "I'll remember that."_

_You were asleep at the time,_ Mikoto answered Naruto's unspoken question.

* * *

"What the hell?" Naruto yelled. "What did you go and do that for?"

_For Hinata,_ Mikoto replied simply. _Those doctors couldn't hack it, and I wasn't going to let her suffer like that. With any luck, she'll believe it was all a dream._

"Ok . . ." Naruto uttered. "But that's my body you were using like that!"

_Mine, too,_ Mikoto retorted. _I'm just as much you as you are._

"_Fascinating conversation, humans,"_ TopGaler remarked dryly from the Dino Minder.

"Sure, Top," Naruto responded.

"Naruto," a familiar voice called out, and the still-armored Naruto turned to see Asuma Sarutobi walking toward him. "So that's the armor Kakashi was telling me about. Not too shabby."

"What do you want?" Naruto interrogated, staring down the bearded jonin through his red visor.

"Kakashi told me you were a Wind Release user," Asuma answered. "So am I." He pulled out a pair of trench knives and concentrated his chakra into them, generating an extended blade of chakra from each one. "See this? It's a technique us Wind Release users can do. I call it the Flying Swallow."

"Extending the reach of your blade with chakra," Naruto mused. "That's pretty cool. I can already do that, though. Watch me." He slashed at a not-too-distant tree with one of his arm blades. The black blade seemingly hadn't touched the tree at all, but then the tree collapsed, its trunk completely cut through.

"So you already understand at least the basics of it," Asuma remarked. "You're really a lot smarter than most people would give you credit for."

"I picked up a good tutor," Naruto responded with a smirk beneath his helmet before powering down the Zero suit, revealing that he was wearing a white coat over a black chainmail shirt and white pants with a black kunai holster taped around his right leg. He was even wearing black open-toed ninja boots with stainless steel armor over his heels. His hands were covered by fingerless black gloves with knuckle guards and metal pads on the backs engraved with cracked eggs with three spikes on top and one spike on the bottom.

"You've really changed your wardrobe, Naruto," Asuma remarked. "You sure you're all right?"

Naruto swished his coat to reveal that the lining was a somewhat dark orange. "Yeah. What brings you?"

"Kakashi sent me to teach you all I knew about how to properly manipulate wind chakra," Asuma replied.

"So that's why that paper ripped itself in two when he gave it to me," Naruto realized. "He was testing my element. But why send you? Why couldn't he do it himself?"

"He felt he needed to concentrate on one student for the Chunin Exam finals," Asuma answered. "However, he didn't want to leave either you or Sakura in bad hands, so he went to people he felt he could trust to teach you. Hence why I'm here."

"And what about Sakura?" Naruto asked. "Who's teaching her?"

"Kurenai," Asuma replied. "Given how well Sakura threw off Ino's Mind Transfer Technique, Kakashi felt that she'd do better with a teacher that knew proper genjutsu. Hence Kurenai training her for the month."

"Oh, well," Naruto muttered. "Could be worse. You could be that pervert Ebisu."

* * *

Elsewhere, Sasuke Uchiha was practicing the Confrontation Beast Lion-Fist passed down to him by his past incarnation Rio. He could feel himself growing stronger with each and every movement, every kata, every strike . . . the power was intoxicating. His lips twisted into a dark smile as the Confrontation Ki surged through his body. Itachi Uchiha would be a dead man the day they met once more.

_Watch it,_ Rio warned curtly in Sasuke's mind. _Vengeance cannot be your sole motive for seeking power. Otherwise, this power will feed off the darkness in your soul and twist you into a monster. You've already seen where that leads._

Sasuke punched the ground, the force of the blow causing it to cave in and form a deep crater. "Let's see what happens when I try it with this . . ." Sasuke began forming hand seals, ending by gripping his left wrist with his right hand and holding his left hand out with the palm down. Concentrating both chakra and Confrontation Ki into this new technique, purplish-black lightning formed in his outstretched hand, condensed into a tight ball that engulfed the aforementioned hand.

"_Ringi: Chidori no Kage."_

Sasuke lunged forward, charging at a cliff while dragging the black Chidori along the ground. His Sharingan activated, allowing him to more easily perceive and evade any obstacle in his path as he reached the cliff and punched through it with the Chidori Shadow. The explosion of black lightning created in the wake of his strike nearly caused the cliff to collapse on Sasuke's head, but Sasuke saved himself with one particular move.

"_Ringi: Goyu Koha."_

The aura-formed black lion tore through the falling rubble, turning it all into so much dust that fell around Sasuke, who had called his armor onto his body. The Black Lion Warrior stood amongst the destruction he had wrought with his newest technique and let out a triumphant laugh.

_Does everything I try to tell you go in one ear and out the other?_ Rio groused.

* * *

In Konoha's main medical facility, Hayate Gekko woke up to find Yugao Uzuki sitting at his bedside. "Hey . . ." he whispered.

"Don't speak right now," the purple-haired woman pleaded. "You still need to recover your strength."

"The last thing I remember . . . was fighting Baki, the jonin instructor for the Sand siblings," Hayate murmured.

"Why would you be fighting Baki?" Yugao asked.

"Something bad is going to happen," Hayate replied grimly. "The Chunin Exam finals are going to be a distraction from what they intend to do."

"They? Who's 'they'?" Yugao interrogated.

"I need . . . to get to Lord Hokage," Hayate answered. "He needs to know, what's coming."

"I suspect he already does," Yugao mused, "if you're talking about what I think you're talking about."

"What do you mean?" Hayate asked.

"Kabuto Yakushi, one of our genin, turned out to be a spy for Orochimaru," Yugao replied. "We caught him trying to assassinate Sasuke Uchiha, and when we tried to detain him, he proved himself a lot stronger than he'd ever let on before. I suppose, now that I look back on it, he was hiding his true capabilities so as to render himself beneath our notice. That's not all . . ."

"What is it, Yugao?" Hayate wondered.

"He held some kind of object, something that looked like an ammonite shell . . . and it expanded into some kind of black armor that made him even harder to fight than he was already," Yugao replied. "But, it seemed like he wasn't entirely in control of his faculties. While in the armor, he went berserk and butchered several ANBU. Now he's on the run."

"I found Kabuto talking with Baki, the Sand siblings' jonin instructor," Hayate explained. "From the sound of their conversation, the Sand and Sound Villages have formed an alliance of some kind . . . an alliance meant to destroy us."

"Why?" Yugao wondered. "The Sand and Leaf were allies!"

"Yeah, I know," Hayate murmured. "That's how I ended up like this. It's a miracle I'm not dead."

Yugao looked more closely at Hayate's side, and spotted a white dao with a hilt that strongly resembled a tiger's head and a cross-guard with a medal inside that vaguely resembled a tiger's face. "What's this?"

"My sword," Hayate replied. "It changed into this, just as Baki struck me down. I don't know how . . . but it's probably the only reason I'm still alive right now."

"It's beautiful," Yugao remarked, admiring the sword's construction.

"Thanks," Hayate answered, "but I've got a far more beautiful sight for these sore eyes." He smiled at her.

"Hayate . . . you haven't coughed once since you woke up," Yugao observed.

"Just my luck," Hayate spoke wryly. "Whatever power this sword has, it must have healed me of that, too."

"Get your rest," Yugao advised, kissing Hayate on the cheek. "You'll need your strength when you meet the Hokage and tell him about what happened to you."

"Thanks," Hayate murmured as he watched Yugao stand up and leave. After she was out of sight, he turned to one side and saw something that made him curious. The object was a white-and-gold bracer with a centered opaque screen, and next to it was a golden key with a ring-shaped end and an engraving that resembled the very symbol on his sword's cross-guard. "Well, this certainly makes things more interesting."

"Finally," the sword spoke. "I thought she'd never leave."

"A sentient weapon," Hayate murmured, stunned but doing his best not to freak out and draw attention to himself. "Who or what are you?"

"The Byakko-Shinken, at your service," the sword replied, and Hayate noticed that the "mouth" of the tiger-headed hilt was moving as the sword spoke.

"White Tiger True Sword . . ." Hayate uttered. "How long have you been hiding inside my katana?"

"It's not a matter of hiding," the Byakko-Shinken replied. "Our souls are bound together, Hayate Gekko. I've had many wielders, but my favorite so far was this boy named Kou. Quite the little pervert, but he had a good heart in spite of that. Maybe that's why I'm with you; you are his reincarnation, after all."

"Reincarnation, huh?" Hayate murmured.

"Yes," the Byakko-Shinken confirmed. "You are he as you are you. That device on your bedside is the Kiba Changer. Put it on, insert that key into it, call out 'Kiryoku Tenshin, Kiba Changer,' and you will be transformed into the White Tiger warrior known as Kibaranger."

"Why choose me?" Hayate asked.

"Besides being Kou's reincarnation, you're a skilled swordsman," the Byakko-Shinken answered. "And you're certainly going to need a way to even the odds against someone like Kabuto Yakushi, given what your girlfriend's said about that encounter with him."

Hayate's grip on the Byakko-Shinken's hilt tightened. "Whatever Sand's involvement with Sound, Orochimaru's pulling the strings somehow."

"Are you going to warn your Hokage?" the Byakko-Shinken asked.

"Yes," Hayate replied, swinging his legs out of the blanket over his body and off the hospital cot to land on the floor. Standing up, Hayate was about to leave when his sword spoke up.

"Aren't you forgetting something?"

Hayate turned to the nightstand and found the Kiba Changer staring up at him. Briefly putting down the Byakko-Shinken, he picked up the changer and attached it to his left wrist before changing back into his jonin uniform. When that was done, he hooked the golden key that accompanied the changer onto one of the scroll pockets on his vest.

"Thanks." With a Body Flicker, Hayate Gekko was gone from the hospital.

* * *

On Team Guy's training grounds, Tenten was examining a pentagon-shaped object with the kanji for "fire" inscribed in bright red. Planted in the ground beside her was her usual katana, but it practically vibrated with a strange power that she simultaneously recognized and found utterly unfamiliar. As if that weren't enough, she also had a strange high-tech pen that resembled some kind of communications device.

"What is all this?" she wondered.

_The power of the Shinkenger,_ a voice whispered in her mind.

"Who the hell are you, and what the hell is a Shinkenger?" Tenten asked irritably.

_The Samurai Sentai of the providence,_ the voice replied, _the warriors sworn to protect the world from the menace of the demons known as Gedoushu._

"Gedoushu?"

Tenten suddenly had flashes of memory, of rampaging demons and armored swordfighters that bravely defeated those demons one after another. _They are the Samurai Sentai Shinkenger, empowered by the force of mojikara to protect the world from the Gedoushu. Mojikara can be channeled through that pen you hold, the Shodo Phone._

"You never explained who _you_ are," Tenten retorted.

_Kaoru Shiba, the 18__th__ lord of the Shiba clan,_ the voice replied, and Tenten suddenly found herself in a forest of cherry blossom trees, standing before a woman in traditional samurai garb with her dark hair tied back in a short ponytail. _Hello, Tenten. It's good to meet you._

"What are you doing here?" Tenten asked.

_I'm here because I am you, you that once was, _Kaoru replied. _Evil is threatening this world, the same evil that threatened mine. If it is to be stopped, it must be with the power of the Sentai Senshi. You will meet others of our kind, and they will be your allies in warding off the evil that threatens this world. They are from different worlds, different Sentai, but they will all fight to protect this world._

"Seriously?" Tenten wondered. "Hey, wait, samurai? I'm a kunoichi!"

_Yes, but you have the honor and pride of a samurai,_ Kaoru answered with a gentle smile. _That'll be good enough. Now, take up my sword – and become ShinkenRed._

"Ok . . ." Tenten murmured, still not sure of what was going on. When the cherry blossom forest faded back to the training ground Tenten had been on, she found her katana firmly in one hand with the Shodo Phone in her other hand. "Let's go." She switched the Shodo Phone into its brush mode and swiped it through the air to make the kanji for fire. "Ippitsu Soujou!"

Upon completing the brush strokes for "fire," Tenten pressed the blue button, and the fire kanji bonded with her, forming a skintight red-and-black fighting suit over her body. The red consisted of a tunic that ended in a skirt with boots, while the black consisted of leggings underneath the aforementioned skirt, plus a design on the tunic that resembled the lining of a closed gi. Her face was concealed by a hard red mask with the fire kanji acting as a visor for her to see through. Completing the ensemble were a gold belt with a circular buckle and white gloves.

Almost on instinct, Tenten removed a black Secret Disk from her buckle and slotted it into her katana. Immediately, the blade morphed into the black-and-gold weapon known as the Shinkenmaru, the Perfect True Sword. Brandishing the newly empowered sword, the red-armored Tenten stood proud.

"ShinkenRed – Tenten!"

* * *

End Notes: There you have it; more Sentai warriors have unveiled themselves. Hayate is the inheritor of the Howling New Star, and Tenten has become the new Samurai of Fire! In the meantime, how will Naruto's training under Asuma in the Wind Release proceed, especially with the vengeful thoughts Naruto has toward Neji for what he did to Hinata in the last chapter? How will Sasuke's developing powers in the Confrontation Beast-Fist shape his actions in the future, especially given his ambition to kill his brother Itachi for the slaughter of their clan? And just what's going to happen to everyone else? For the answers to those questions and others, you'll just have to wait and see – but hopefully not as long as I made you do so the last two times! Until then, let's go on!


	8. Daybreak Shinobi vs Zero Warrior

"Naruto vs. Super Sentai"

Chapter 8: "Daybreak Shinobi vs. Zero Warrior"

Disclaimer: Naruto belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, Shonen Jump, and VIZ Media. Super Sentai belongs to Toei and TV Asahi. I make no money from the use of either property or their related characters in this story. This is solely for fun.

Author's note: Sorry for taking so long with the next chapter of this story, it's a habit with me, no matter how hard I try. Lucky for you, I was inspired by watching an episode of Power Rangers Samurai to get started on this story again. This time, I'll skip right to the good stuff, and I'll be bringing you Naruto vs. Neji! Now, one might be thinking that Naruto is gonna have a pretty easy time because he inherited Abarekiller's powers, but Neji is still a damned skilled fighter in his own right . . . and what if he's inherited Sentai Warrior powers of his own – powers equal and opposite to Naruto's? You wanna see how it turns out? Let's go on!

* * *

Naruto walked into the arena where the Chunin Exam finals were being held with an expression of cold purpose on his face. The training under Asuma had paid off, with Naruto learning a lot about how to enhance his barehanded strikes or sword slashes with wind. He'd also made the acquaintance of one so-called "Super Pervert" by the moniker of "Jiraiya the Toad Sage," who'd taught him something as well.

As he entered, he saw his fellow competitors looking at him strangely. Those others were Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara of the Sand, Shino Aburame, Shikamaru Nara, Sakura Haruno, and Neji Hyuga. Naruto noticed that Sakura and Neji were dressed differently from the last time he'd seen either of them. Sakura now wore a green version of her usual combat dress with a shorter pair of shorts underneath, taller shinobi boots with armor on the shins . . . and her hair was in a braid resembling a chameleon's tail. Neji wore a white-and-blue combat robe over dark pants, and the sleeves of his robe were long enough to hide his hands.

"Where's Sasuke?" Naruto asked.

"Why worry about him?" Neji asked. "It's not as though your destiny goes much farther than this round."

Naruto just glared at him. "I'm going to enjoy kicking your ass, Neji."

Just then, Hayate Gekko interrupted their standoff with a cough. "Please take your places. You are proud shinobi and future chunin. Act like it."

The eight genin present assembled, Naruto taking the opportunity to adjust his white coat, which he wore open over a black chainmail shirt and white shinobi pants with armored shinobi boots. Soon enough, the first match was announced to begin, and that match was between Naruto Uzumaki and Neji Hyuga. From the bleachers, Hinata Hyuga, dressed in a heavy white-and-blue jacket that she wore closed, stared worriedly at them.

_Naruto . . ._ she thought. _Please don't kill him . . ._

"What the hell was the point of trying to kill Hinata?" Naruto asked Neji. "What could she have done to you?"

"Why do you care?" Neji sneered.

"Because until recently, she was the only one who cared about me," Naruto whispered. "The only one who didn't think I was a freak or a menace . . . and you damn near killed her. _For what?_"

"It doesn't matter to someone like you," Neji retorted.

Naruto raised his left arm, revealing the Dino Minder from his coat sleeve. "I'll beat it out of you, then. Bakuryu Change."

In a whirlwind of green-gold light, Naruto transformed and charged at Neji with a high-speed punch, taking him by surprise. "What the . . . ?"

Most of the audience was shocked, too, with panicked whispers going through the crowd concerning where Naruto had gained his new power. "The armor's to protect me from your Gentle Fist," Naruto explained briefly. "Among other advantages . . ."

Neji wiped off his bloody lip and beckoned Naruto for another attack. "Is that all you can do?"

"No," Naruto whispered coldly, and charged Neji for another high-speed blitz attack. This time, Neji reacted with a special technique.

"Rotation!"

Immediately, chakra unleashed itself from every node in Neji's body as he spun like a tornado, the chakra spinning with him to form a shield that knocked Naruto away from Neji and into a wall. "Damn . . . that was a Main House Hyuga technique . . . How . . . ?"

Hiashi Hyuga was just as surprised, but not for long. "He must have reverse-engineered it after seeing a Main House member perform that move. Truly, Neji is the best to come from the Branch House . . ."

"What about that boy in white?" Hanabi Hyuga, Hiashi's younger daughter, asked. "Do you think he will be trouble for Neji?"

"Maybe," Hiashi admitted. "But Neji has not come this far for nothing. He will not lose to someone like Naruto Uzumaki."

Hanabi, seemingly reassured by that statement from Hiashi, turned back to watch the fight, as Naruto straightened to his feet, thankful that his armor had absorbed most of the impact. "Thanks," Naruto remarked, cracking the joints in his neck. "My turn."

He went into another high-speed attack on Neji, striking from so many angles even Neji's Byakugan was hard-pressed to detect his motions. Neji retaliated with Gentle Fist strikes, but each blow was merely absorbed by Naruto's white armor. Naruto's own retaliation was to hit him with as many Needle Fist strikes as possible, interspersed with Scalpel Fist strikes to cut certain nerve endings. By the time he was finished, Neji's entire right side was numb and useless.

"You . . . how?" Neji asked.

"Medical ninjutsu repurposed for combat," Naruto replied with a smirk beneath his helmet. "I'm a surprisingly good doctor when I wanna be."

Neji glared at Naruto. "How did you get this strong?"

"I bled for it," Naruto answered. "And I had some good teachers."

Neji straightened up and lifted his left arm, revealing a very familiar bracer. _The Brace Throttle!_ Mikoto uttered in shock.

_Brace what?_ Naruto asked.

_The changer used by Dekabreak,_ Mikoto replied. _I had no idea this guy was Tetsu's incarnation._

"Change Standby!" Neji called out, forcing his right arm to move. "Emergency, Dekabreak!" Flipping open the lid of the speedometer built into his changer, Neji unleashed glowing liquid metal that wrapped around his body and hardened into a white suit with a blue left sleeve, blue collar, and blue down his entire left side. The suit was distinguished by a golden Roman numeral VI on his chest, the "I" going down his leg as well. A golden belt with "SPD" engraved into the buckle wrapped around his hips, and a gold bar with the same inscription rested on his left breast. His face was wholly concealed by a white helmet with six notches above a black visor and a dog-styled golden badge on the forehead.

This shocked the audience even more. Now _Neji_ was wearing a white suit, too!

"What a drag . . ." Shikamaru muttered from his position in the competitors' waiting booth.

"What's with those suits?" Kankuro wondered.

"Those suits didn't appear until they used those devices on their wrists," Temari remarked. "It could be some kind of transformation."

Neji flexed his white-gloved fingers before raising his left fist and unlocking the throttle on his changer. With a few quick twists, he activated one of its special modes.

"_Kousoku-ken! Lightning Fist!"_

* * *

His left arm practically blurred into invisibility, so fast were the strikes he was making with it. Even Naruto found it hard to defend himself against the speed and force of the Lightning Fist technique. In the end, he found himself crashing into the arena wall, propelled by the sheer power of Neji's Lightning Fist. He landed on one knee, holding his armored chest tightly, even through that, the blows had _hurt._

"Even with that white suit of yours, you are still nothing more than a failure and a loser, Naruto," Neji sneered. "Just like that unworthy heir of the Main House."

Naruto let out a low growl, his countenance furious beneath the red visor of Abarekiller as he began to rise. "I'll show you who the real failure is," he vowed, as he whirled into another high-speed barrage on Neji.

"_Cho Kousoku-ken! Super Lightning Fist!"_

With the powered-up Lightning Fist technique, Neji's arm was a blur of motion blocking every one of Naruto's strikes. The final motion by Neji was a brutal punch that again sent Naruto crashing hard into the arena wall. This time, he landed on his front, lifting himself up with aid from the Wing Pentact in sword form. "I'm not out yet . . ." he snarled.

"Why don't you just accept you've lost?" Neji taunted. "Even with your new powers, you were never a match for me, and now that I have this kind of power added to my own skills . . . you're not even in the same league as me."

Asuma looked down at the battle with concern. "Naruto . . . remember what you learned. Don't give up so easily."

Back in the arena, TopGaler was speaking to Naruto through his Dino Minder. _"Human, change tactics. You are not going to win like this."_

"I know, Top," Naruto muttered. "I know." He flipped the Wing Pentact around and began slashing the air with the "beak" on its hilt, drawing arrows out of light that he fired at Neji with a final swipe of his blade. The arrows flew at Neji, only to be deflected by another Rotation from Neji, the arrows bouncing off his shield of whirling chakra and blowing up when they crashed into random parts of the arena, creating small craters where they fell.

As soon as Neji came out of the Rotation, he had barely enough time to raise his Brace Throttle-bearing arm to block Naruto's punch. "A facile distraction," Neji sneered, before folding out the throttle and twisting it with his other hand.

"_Dengeki-ken! Electro Fist!"_

The electrical aura generated by the new Brace Throttle technique forced Naruto off Neji, and Neji punched Naruto with that selfsame lightning-charged fist, causing sparks and electricity to explode off his suit on impact.

"Electro Fist, huh?" Naruto remarked, as whirling wind chakra began to form around his body, taking on a golden hue due to his Dino Guts. "That's nice. See how you like _this_ fist!" The whirling, grinding wind concentrated itself at Naruto's fist and he hit Neji with a screw punch that almost literally funneled the spiraling wind aura through Neji for an impact that knocked _him_ into the arena wall this time.

"Where the hell did _that_ come from?" Genma Shiranui exclaimed in sheer shock at the power used by Naruto to floor Neji.

Asuma just smiled as his cigarette dangled from his mouth. "Me."

"You?" Genma asked.

"Kakashi asked me and Kurenai to do him a solid and help Naruto and Sakura train for the Chunin Exam finals," Asuma replied. "He had to give Sasuke his undivided attention but he didn't want to leave Naruto and Sakura in the lurch. That's where Kurenai and I came in. Sakura had an aptitude for genjutsu and was able to throw off Ino's Mind Transfer Technique, so Kurenai could help her grow that into a serious asset. Naruto was good with a sword and his elemental affinity was wind, so I taught him some wind techniques that could work well with a sword. Didn't know he was gonna modify them to work on his own body, but hell, that kid isn't the most unpredictable ninja we've got for nothing."

Inside the arena, Neji was rising to his feet. "You surprised me," he admitted. "I wasn't expecting you to pull off a technique like that. But it's not going to help you one damned bit. Not against me."

"You still want to go?" Naruto asked. "Well, come on. Let's go." The whirling, grinding aura of wind chakra began to form around Naruto's body again, again tinted gold with the added power of Dino Guts as his red visor glowed like firelight.

"_Tatsumaki-ken! Tornado Fist!"_

Neji and Naruto charged at each other, their fists engulfed with the power of wind to strike each other. The shockwave from their colliding fists emanated throughout the arena and beyond, creating a powerful gust that nearly knocked everyone off-balance. "How are they doing this?" Ino shouted in panic from the audience stands.

Tenten looked at Neji and Naruto in awe. "Their power is like nothing I've ever seen before," she murmured. "Even with all the time I spent training with Neji, I had no idea he was capable of this . . . and Naruto . . . I don't think I'll underestimate him again anytime soon."

In the end, the white-clad Rangers' clashing powers generated such an intense flurry that it exploded into a vacuum that blasted both of them into the arena walls . . . and left a lot of disheveled audience members staring in shock at what had just happened. In fact, the force of their colliding powers had been so great that it overloaded their changers, forcibly dispelling their armors to reveal two battered teenagers.

Naruto Uzumaki immediately began to rise to his feet, bruises visible on his face and scorch marks staining the white fabric of his coat and pants. Neji Hyuga also rose to his feet, his own white-and-blue robes marred with scorch marks and his almost femininely handsome face similarly marred with bruises. Neither combatant looked ready to quit in the slightest, no matter how much they would have preferred it if the other would quit.

"Why do you persist?" Neji asked.

"It's what I do," Naruto replied. "My way of the ninja . . . never go back on my word, never back down from anything or anyone."

"I remember Hinata saying something like that," Neji commented idly, almost mockingly. "She learned it from you, didn't she? And like the blind following the blind, she attempted to echo your example . . . and look where she is now. A loser – once, always, and forever. That is how fate works, and none of us escape that."

"Fate, huh?" Naruto remarked, as if tasting the word in his mouth. "Is that what you think? That fate decreed you the victor of this battle? And what happens if you lose? Is that fate, too?"

Neji narrowed his eyes as the Byakugan manifested in them, veins bulging around those hateful white eyes. "It doesn't matter what you believe. What matters is that our paths are predetermined and there is nothing to change that. You walk the path of the failure, the reject, and no matter how hard you try to walk a different path, that is still the path you are destined to travel."

"And what does that mean?" Naruto asked. "That you walk the path of victory, of triumph, of success? Who are you to decide what path _I_ walk? Who are you to decide what path _anyone_ walks? Hinata came into the Chunin Exams because she wanted to change her path! She believed that she could change herself if she strived hard enough, and I still believe she can! I believe any of us can walk our own path, make our own destiny . . . if we are willing _to fight for it!_" As he spoke, his voice growing more impassioned, golden energy wisped from his body and began to take the shape of a three-toed dinosaur claw. "You can go on believing you're the puppet of fate if you want, but all that makes you is a filthy coward, someone who isn't fit to wear that changer on your wrist!"

"You don't know a damned thing!" Neji snarled. "What would a piece of motherless trash like you know about me?"

"I know enough to know you're a damned coward!" Naruto shouted back indignantly as he charged Neji, ready to finish him off.

"And right in my path of divination . . ." Neji growled, as a yin-yang symbol manifested under his feet with ripples extending from it and ensnaring Naruto. His stance had shifted, his body to one side, his right arm extended backward and his left arm hung low but extended forward.

_This is gonna hurt,_ Naruto thought.

_As your kind would say, "No shit," human,_ TopGaler remarked from the Dino Minder.

"Gentle Fist Art: Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms," Neji whispered menacingly. "Two strikes!" He hit Naruto with two Gentle Fist strikes. "Four strikes!" He hit him with two more Gentle Fist strikes to make four. "Eight strikes!" Four more strikes came Naruto's way to make eight. "Sixteen strikes!" Eight more strikes made a not-very-sweet sixteen for Naruto. "Thirty-two strikes!" Sixteen more stabs in Naruto's chakra nodes came from Neji's not-so-gentle strikes. "And sixty-four strikes!" Thirty-two more strikes from Neji rained down on Naruto like deadly wasp stings, all sixty-four together knocking him back with each point of contact and leaving him on the ground with no chakra to speak of.

* * *

Hiashi and Hanabi Hyuga were both absolutely floored by what they had just seen. A child of the Branch House had successfully defeated his foe with a replication of a technique that was supposed to be only for the Main House to learn. Not for the first time, but even stronger now, Hiashi Hyuga was filled with regret and self-loathing. "But for a quirk of fate, you could have been everything the Main House would ever want," he murmured to himself.

"That's enough out of you," Neji murmured to the downed Naruto. "I have cut off your chakra. There is no way you will be able to continue fighting. You might as well surrender now, or I won't be culpable for the fate you've bestowed upon yourself."

"Fate this, fate that . . ." Naruto muttered. "I'm getting sick of hearing about you and this bitch called Fate. For someone who hates Fate so much, you sure don't mind talking as though she's the be-all and end-all of your universe. So what's the deal? Go on a bad date, and still obsessed over her even today?"

The words "bad date" echoed in Neji's brain. There was indeed a bad date, but it wasn't the kind that simpleton of a foe was thinking of. It was the date he'd learned just what he really meant to his so-called family, what his role was supposed to be. "You want to know . . ." he whispered ominously. "I'll show you, the mark of the Hyuga clan's enduring curse of hatred." He pulled off his headband, revealing a green manji symbol etched onto his forehead with a wavy line flowing from either side.

_A seal . . ._ Mikoto realized.

"This is the seal the Main House of the Hyuga family uses to keep those from the Branch Houses under their thumb," Neji explained, cold fury in his tone and eyes. "This seal binds us of the Branch Houses to do the will of those of the Main House, lest we be cursed with brain-splitting agony intense enough to kill us! And my father, Hizashi Hyuga, twin of the Hyuga clan head Hiashi, was a member of the Branch House . . . all because he was born _second_ and Hiashi was born _first._ When Hinata and I were young, this village was in the middle of forming an alliance with Cloud Village, but it was a ruse on the part of Cloud to steal the Byakugan from our clan.

"The infiltrator intended to make off with Hinata, but Hiashi saved her, killing the abductor before he could escape the clan grounds with her. And then Cloud had the nerve to demand Hiashi's head, as the man he killed to protect Hinata was the ambassador Cloud had sent to the Leaf Village, and they interpreted the killing as a cause to declare war. To prevent that from happening, they demanded Hiashi's head – but they got _my father's_ head in its place, because it looked just like Hiashi's _and_ the seal placed on him and all other members of the Branch House would activate when he died to prevent Cloud from _ever _getting the secrets of the Byakugan.

"That is what we of the Branch Houses are good for, to be decoys, to be shields, to be _sacrifices_ for the Main House!" The fury in Neji's voice blazed like hellfire. "That is the fate I cannot change! That is the fate I was born to, while a weakling like Hinata was born the heir to the Main House! Do you understand now, Naruto Uzumaki! There is nothing for us to stand in the way of fate!"

Naruto said nothing for a long time, his eyes closed as though shut to the reality he was facing. Then they opened, with a supremely sad yet resolute expression on his face. "I feel sorry for you, Neji. Losing your father like that . . . but Hinata had nothing to do with that. She was just a child, then, as were you – and you can hate the leaders of your clan for sacrificing your father, but to take it out on Hinata was just _low._ You don't think she suffers, too, knowing that your father had to die for her father to live? You don't think she still cares about you, even after what you did to her?"

"You wouldn't understand a damned thing about it!" Neji roared. "You weren't marked like I was!"

Naruto let out a low, bitter chuckle. "You think so?" In a flash of white, he'd thrown off his coat _and_ his fishnet shirt, revealing a lean yet well-muscled bare torso with a seal etched into his stomach, framing his navel. "This mark is the mark I've born since the day I was born, the day the Nine-Tailed Fox attacked this village and slew so many good people – so many mothers, so many fathers, so many brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, sons and daughters! This mark reminds me that the day I was born was the same day so many of them died, and that is a burden I will bear every day for the rest of my life! But it is not a burden I will allow to crush me as you allowed yours to crush you!" As he spoke, golden light mixed with red tints began to rise from his body, growing so bright it almost hurt Neji to look at him.

"What is this?" Neji interrogated. "I cut off your chakra! How are you doing this?"

"You want to continue to suffer under 'Fate's' thumb?" Naruto taunted as his golden-red aura continued to rise in brightness and power. "Go ahead and do that, but don't expect the rest of us to be like you! Don't expect _me_ to be like you, because I'm going to become Hokage, and when I do, I'll change your clan's legacy of hatred! _Bakuryu Change!"_

With that shout, Naruto's Dino Guts – mixed with a bit of Nine-Tailed chakra – exploded from him, and when the explosion cleared, he was charging Neji as Abare Mode Abarekiller. Neji immediately raised his Brace Throttle, shouting, "Emergency, Dekabreak!" to transform into his own Ranger battle suit. With a quick twist of the throttle, he began his own finishing strike.

"_Senko-ken! Plasma Fist!"_

Neji rushed at Naruto with his Brace Throttle-enhanced fist sparking in readiness to make the finishing blow, and Naruto charged him to make his own final strike, both fighters accelerating to violently collide with each other. Their finishers clashed, and once again, the energies unleashed by them created shockwaves and gusts so intense that it now threatened to shake down the entire arena. "What the hell are those crazy bastards doing?" shouted one unlucky chunin observer.

"My hair!" Ino whined desperately.

"What a drag . . ." Shikamaru groaned from the finalists' viewing area.

Shino just stared impassively down into the battlefield, while Gaara's bloodlust was stoked by the power Naruto and Neji were bringing to bear on each other. Kankuro began to tremble from feeling his little brother's thirst for blood, and Temari allowed herself a brief smirk as she witnessed Naruto's power. Sakura looked down with concern at how much Naruto was pushing himself and amazed at how far he was taking this.

She was also humbled by his revelation; her own father had died on the same day Naruto was born, and perhaps that was why she hadn't taken too kindly to Naruto always pestering her for dates. His existence just felt like a reminder of a ghost she would never get to know for herself, no matter how highly her mother spoke of him, and she'd unfairly taken it out on Naruto. Naruto, who'd been more aware and more torn up inside about this tragic correlation than he'd ever let anyone see before.

In the end, their conflagration ended in a massive explosion of wind and light that nearly knocked everyone in the audience down, not to mention made a mess out of a lot of viewers' hair – much to Ino's consternation. As the commotion died down, it was very clearly seen that Neji was still standing, albeit not in such good condition and his suit had powered down. Naruto, on the other hand, was lying on the ground some distance away, seemingly unmoving and unconscious.

Neji smirked bitterly. "Still no match for me, no matter how much you talked." He turned to Hayate. "You might as well declare me winner."

"Actually . . . no," a dreadfully familiar voice spoke from behind Neji, just in time for Neji to turn and get kicked to the ground by none other than Naruto Uzumaki, also powered down but not down for the count.

"How did you . . . ?" Neji asked in surprise from his position on the ground.

"Sleight of hand, misdirection, and the help of a clone and discarded clothes that kept those all-seeing eyes from looking where I didn't need you looking," Naruto replied. "Just so you know, the Clone Technique was my worst back in the Academy. Failed the graduation exams three times because of it, and you know what? I didn't quit. Never even thought of it . . . except once or twice, but the point is that I _never_ quit. And I was the loser. You're the prodigy. If someone like me can become a ninja and still persevere despite everything going against me, you don't have that much of an excuse. And if you're not going to honor Tetsu's memory, you don't need to be wearing his changer."

With that, he turned and began to walk away from Neji, as Hayate declared Naruto the winner of the first match of the Chunin Exam finals. There was silence for a moment, as the audience digested everything they had seen and heard with their own eyes and ears – Naruto Uzumaki, the failure, the loser, the outcast, the bête noire of the Hidden Leaf, had defeated Neji Hyuga, a prodigy possibly even greater than Sasuke Uchiha. Then . . . slowly but surely, they started to clap, and cheer, and it spread like the flu, the cheers eventually cohering into distinct words, and those words were . . .

"NARUTO! NARUTO! NARUTO! NARUTO!"

Repeat ad nauseam.

As Naruto picked up his discarded coat and began to walk back into the finalists' booth, he looked up at the cheering audience, and saw Hinata's brightening expression. That someone as dark and gloomy as she seemed could look _so_ elated for him . . . that made him smile more than the cheers of the audience ever could. That this was the same girl who had seen him and admired him all along, before anyone else ever bothered to . . . made it that much sweeter.

"Thank you, Hinata . . ." he whispered.

"_I will admit, that was a touching moment,"_ TopGaler remarked. _"Got the admiration you wanted?"_

"I already did, Top," Naruto murmured. "She was there all along . . ."

"You did it, Naruto!" Sakura cheered as she saw him, unmindful of his still-bare torso, concealed only partially by his coat draped over his shoulder.

"Yeah, just don't overdo it like that again," Shikamaru grumbled. "It's a total drag."

"I'll try not to," Naruto answered coolly.

Shino just nodded in Naruto's direction, while the Sand trio looked at Naruto with vastly different expressions. Kankuro's eyes were full of worry about the possibility of fighting Naruto, while Gaara's eyes were full of twisted excitement at the thought of being able to fight Naruto. Temari's eyes conveyed predatory desire, as did her licking her lips when she gazed upon him.

_Dangerous girls seem to have a habit of falling for you,_ Mikoto observed. _First Anko, now Temari._

_Anko was your fault, genius,_ Naruto retorted. _You had to flirt with her while she was trying to freak me out._

_She fascinated me,_ Mikoto answered unrepentantly.

"Wonder who's gonna be up next," Naruto remarked aloud.

* * *

Inside the ornate booth reserved for Kages, Hiruzen Sarutobi had greeted the Kazekage. Thanks to Hayate Gekko, Sarutobi was aware of the Sand Village's alliance with the Sound Village, but he had to play it cool – he could not let the Kazekage know he was onto him, and cause the other Kage to act out in a manner that would endanger his villagers. They exchanged the standard pleasantries, with the Kazekage making a jibe at Sarutobi's advanced age.

"It's good the Chunin Exams were here," the younger man remarked. "Otherwise, I doubt you would have been able to make the trip."

Sarutobi forced a chuckle. "I've still got life in these bones for some time yet."

"Yes, but how much time?" the Kazekage wondered aloud. "It would be a good idea to begin looking into a successor before it's too late."

"Rest assured, Lord Kazekage, I will be here for sometime yet," the aged Hokage replied with a taunting smirk. "Or are you in a hurry to see me replaced?"

"That boy . . . Naruto Uzumaki . . . he's something else, isn't he?" the Kazekage commented.

"That he is," Sarutobi agreed. "The most surprising of our genin . . . and the most promising."

"I thought that would have been Sasuke Uchiha; from what I hear, the boy is a genius," the Kazekage mused.

"Genius is one thing, will is another . . . and I have seen no one else with more will than Naruto Uzumaki," Sarutobi replied. "You may not understand this, Lord Kazekage, but the Will of Fire is something that burns bright in all of us of the Leaf, and it is that will, that indomitable spirit that gives us light even in our darkest hours."

"How poetic," the Kazekage mocked.

"In any event, it seems our vaunted Sasuke Uchiha has yet to make it to the finals, and it is about his time to fight," Sarutobi said. "If he fails to show . . . he'll be disqualified."

"I would suggest waiting a bit longer," the Kazekage remarked. "He is up against Gaara, according to the match arrangements, and I would most enjoy seeing how his abilities stack up against those of my son."

"_Your son"?_ Sarutobi repeated skeptically inside his thoughts. _The Kazekage doesn't give a damn about Gaara. The boy is just another weapon to him. What is he playing at?_

"And many in this arena came here just to see Sasuke Uchiha fight," the Kazekage added silkily. "Disappointing the people might not bode so well for the Leaf when it comes to future clients, after all."

Sarutobi bit back an angry growl. "Your point is appreciated, Lord Kazekage." He stood up and made his announcement. "We will be postponing the match between Sasuke Uchiha and Gaara of the Sand for the finale of the first round! If Sasuke Uchiha does not show by then, he _will_ be disqualified from the Chunin Exams, no matter the reason! Is that understood?"

* * *

The audience gasped and began to clamor in excitement, much to Naruto's mild annoyance. "Sasuke . . . this show's all about him, isn't it?" he remarked sourly as he began to put his jacket back on.

"The Uchiha were a prestigious clan before they were wiped out," Sakura explained. "They were both feared and admired for their skills and prowess on the battlefield, and since they were a founding clan of the Leaf . . . it's got special resonance for a lot of people in the audience to see Sasuke fight."

"_A_ founding clan, the Senju were the other," Naruto replied crossly.

"You're peeved Sasuke's stealing your thunder without even being here to do it to your face," Sakura deduced.

"Doesn't make me any less right," Naruto answered, still cross as he looked out into the arena. "Wonder who'll be up until Sasuke gets his ass out here?"

That was when Hayate made his announcement of the next set of combatants. "Will Sakura Haruno and Temari of the Sand come down to the arena?"

Temari looked at Sakura with a menacing stare, and Sakura gave it back with _interest,_ her own killing intent rising against Temari's. The look in Temari's eyes said, "I'm gonna _break_ you like a twig, little girl." The look in Sakura's eyes retorted with, "We'll see who gets _broken,_ and hint: _Not me._"

"Women," Shikamaru muttered.

"Just so you remember, whichever one of us wins . . . you have to take on next," Sakura responded in a sickly sweet voice only _hinting_ at the pain she had in store for the shadow-using ninja. Her gaze shifted to Temari as her smirk turned deadly. "Let's go."

* * *

Endnotes: My triumphant return to Naruto vs. Super Sentai has only just begun! I truly, deeply, and sincerely apologize for my nearly two-year delay; I had a lot of other stuff, Spidery stuff, on my mind and it caused me to neglect my Naruto crossover fictions. Praise goes to Power Rangers Samurai for giving me back some inspiration, along with the recent Sentai series Kaizoku Sentai Gokaiger and Tokumei Sentai Go-Busters! Now that I'm back, I'm ready to get back on a roll, introducing new Sentai heroes and heroines to the world of Naruto

Next up, Sakura and Temari are going head-to-head in a girl-on-girl beatdown for the ages! Sakura's learned a lot from Mele and Kurenai, but will any of it be enough to prevent her from getting curb-stomped by the deadly wind mistress Temari of the Sand just as Tenten was? What is the Kazekage's hidden agenda in the Leaf Village . . . if it's even the Kazekage at all? And where the hell is Sasuke Uchiha, and will his new Confrontation Beast-Fist powers be a match for Gaara's absolute defense? For the answers to those questions and others, hang on to your hats, and let's Go-on!


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